Excuse me, sir

(I wrote this piece over the summer, but think it's madd relevant during the cold winter months as well. Perhaps most especially during the holidays.)


The blazing yellow sun beat down on the curvy black road so fiercely that I wondered if I would witness a hardened street turn back to the same soft tar it had been when the sturdy brown men had laid it three years ago. I was in that fresh zone that accompanies participation in social movement for positive change; I was full in the throws of it this day a few weeks ago. My homegirl Keisha had called to say we were going to have one of our final building sessions to think through the logistics of this Children’s Social Forum that was to commence in three days, and to ask if we could meet up at my spot. Kate Shapiro and Karen Lopez – two young sisters whose veins pump organizing-type blood – were going to come over so we could talk about lesson plans, order last-minute supplies, and re-check our story telling/music creating/sign painting/capoeria playing schedule for the youth. Keisha, doing her usual million-and-one things at once, was out 20-W by Six Flags, and had decided to come over a bit early. I was running a bit late, because I had taken longer than I planned in the supermarket.

I knew I was trying to make this new dish Lewy had told me about with chicken and onions and tomatoes and garlic. I knew I wanted Italian seasoning in it, and I decided to go with boneless breast meat instead of drumsticks and thighs. The Tyson chicken had a “Manager’s Special” stamp on the price tag, so it was a little less expensive than usual. I thought for a moment about what it means for meat to be on sale. Is it bad? Going bad? Do they just have too much? The sell-by date was still two days away, and the isle was so air-conditioned that I figured the chicken – resting in an even cooler refrigerated shelf – was fine. I decided for sure that the chicken was just on sale because there was too damn much of it. It was stacked neatly from my knees to above my head. Chicken packages stretched several paces. Then the refrigerated meat section turned to turkey. Then to pork. Then to beef. Just beyond the meat section was the fish market. And just beyond that was the dairy…

I was surrounded by food. I regarded my grocery-shopping task as I often do: a necessary errand that was one of many items on my to-do list. I spent time in the produce section, and picked out what looked best. I decided on grapes (green and seedless), peaches (instead of nectarines) and salad-making veggies. I threw cheese in my basket. I figured beer would be nice. I wanted to put the chicken dish over some pasta. Fusilli or Rotini? Rigatoni or Spaghetti? I decided on Linguini, to be on the safe side (??), and realized that I forgot tomatoes. I zig-zagged back to produce hurridly, chose grape tomatoes over cherry or vine, and checked the time on my cell phone.

It’s crazy how we get trapped by goodies that are intended to make life easier.

I picked up the pace and tried to ward off that localized headache that I get sometimes when I am running late. In the line, I chose mint mojito gum, browsed through People and Us, and threw Essence on the belt. The seventy-eight dollars and seventy-eight cents caught my attention not because it seemed like too much money, but instead because it’s the year of my birth, twice. Seventy-eight seventy-eight. Not too much money for a 28-year-old graduate student to spend on some groceries.

Back home, I prepared some food while Keisha read in the living room. The temperature was nearly 100 degrees outside, but “my” air had “my” condo down to 72. I own 800 square feet of property. I am a successful American. I am a successful African American. I am a successful biracial American woman. I chose my identity. I create my subjectivity. I have a bachelors and a masters degree. I’m working on another one still. I say who I am and where I live and what clothes I wear and what kind of tomatoes to buy. I decide when to take out the trash from my little kitchen.

So I did this day, I took out the trash because I wanted my guests to be able to throw away with plenty of space. I jogged down to the dumpster. It was absolutely blazing hot outside.

This is where my memory turns into s-l-o-w m-o-t-i-o-n. There is a way that I have to swing my garbage a few times, to get up the momentum to get it in the dumpster out back. It’s the type of industrial-sized dumpster that has a rusty door that slides back to reveal a window opening, about chest high, through which to throw one’s trash. With heavy bags, it’s actually a bit tricky to get it in, but I have had much practice and have come to perfect the craft. “One… two” I said to myself as I swung the trash back and fourth. Just as I was about to swing on three, I looked at my target and saw a man stand up. Inside the dumpster.

I froze.

He put his hands up.

“Excuse me ma’am. I – I’m sorry ma’am.”

His hands were still up, in a freeze-stance I have seen when people deal with cops.

“I’m sorry ma’am,” he said quietly. “I’m just looking for some food to eat.”

I stayed frozen.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled again softly.

I laid the heavy bag of garbage I was swinging on the side of the dumpster and I gently put up my hands to mirror his. “I’m sorry,” I repeated softly, and I turned on my heels and ran.

Irantothehouseandcollectedlotsoffood:cheese,grapes,crackers,andtomatoes. I hurriedly told Keisha what had happened and I darted back out the door to bring him what I had gathered. I was shaking and running and out of breath.

But when I reached the dumpster and peered in, he was gone.

I stood there, shocked and scared and embarrassed and devastated. Why had I not said anything? Why hadn’t I been faster? Why was he in there in the first place? Where had he gone?

Slowly, slowly, slowly, I headed back up to my air-conditioned space, to build with friends about social justice.

The Light From God

Saturdays are fresh in my world. They always have been, and I try to keep them that way (incidentally, I love Sundays and Tuesdays too, for other reasons I may write about later). But Saturdays are extra cool these days, because I have an opportunity to build with a set of super dynamic young folks at the community center where I have volunteered for several years: Refugee Community Center.

I have come to expect madd interesting conversations, whether they unfold with students, other volunteers, or staff at the center. Such is the case, I think, when a small group of folks engage in innovative projects where all the participants are expected to shape it. What I don’t presume to expect is how the conversation will unfold, with whom, or about what. Yesterday was no different.

When I asked one of the students, Nurea, if she knew the meaning of her name, she smiled and told me “Ah yes, there is a story to that actually.” We sat down together, and she organized the papers in front of her, as though she was gathering her thoughts about where to begin. “I asked my father about this, some time ago. He told me my Grandmother had named me, and he told me that she told him that ‘Nur-’ the first part of my name means light in Arabic. The rest my Grandmother just added on… I guess she thought it was pretty or something,” she said and shyly looked down at her hands.

“It sure is,” I told her, and I wanted to clarify what I had heard her say the first part of her name means. “So, the first part of your name means ‘light’ as in…” I asked as I motioned up to the florescent classroom-style lights above.

At this, she laughed briefly and then seemed to check back with me to see if I had been serious. “Well, light, yes, but not this kind of light Ms. Jillian!” I raised my eyebrows as if to say, “Oh? Do explain.”

“No, not this kind of light. I’m talking about the light that shines from God. I mean, you know what I mean, right? The light from God, Ms. Jillian. We all have it.”

The Difference Between Phoung and Phung

It is said that much is held in a name. Step into the Refugee Community Center, and you’ll be surrounded by folks whose names are frequently mispronounced or misspelled. To be sure, the names take on this hard-to-pronounce trait specifically because we are within these walls; within this city; within this context. Mambala and Zlata and Huy and Tuaka and Farishta and Florent are here. No matter that in Gambia and Bosnia and Vietnam and Nigeria and Iran and Sierra Leon their names may ring like John and Jenny and Bob and Bill and Becky and David. In this country, they signify “otherness.” To those with whom these children interact, this impression may carry a positive or negative charge. Neutrality does not emerge here, as they are undoubtedly always the “other.”

I sat with a young child yesterday, and today it seemed as though we had known each other forever. Third graders have a way doing that easily; no consideration of what has come before. It seems that if one is willing to help, one gains instant celebrity status among a classroom of elementary students. So as I entered today, she waved her arms with wild excitement from her seat “Oooo! Miss Jill! Can you help me with my homework?” Pleased that someone remembered me, I smiled and sat down next to Phoung. Or is it Phung.

She asked me quickly, in a high-pitched, third grade intonation, “do you remember my name?” I was pleased I had gone over the names in my head last night, and said (almost proudly), “yes, sweetheart. It’s Phoung.” She giggled and said, “No it’s not! It’s Phung!” Knowing that Vietnamese is a tonal language, but not ever really knowing what that meant, I could hear the slightest difference in the tone and sound of the two names. “O.K., Phung,” I started, “thank you for correcting –” “Noooooooo! It’s Phoung!” I stared at her, trying to discern whether she was teaching me about her culture or simply playing a trick on me. I was suddenly aware of my own brief otherness as I looked around the table and three other Vietnamese children started laughing and speaking to each other in Vietnamese. “Which name to you prefer?” I asked her. “Well, the thing is, Phoung is Vietnamese, Phung is Chinese.” My mind was now racing with Chinese occupation and Vietnam War information, as I tried to fit this conversation into a context that I understood. “You see,” she continued quickly, “ in Vietnamese it means far, far off place; in Chinese it means distant place.” Now it was my turn to giggle, as the stress in her explanation did not fall on “far, far off place” or “distant place” as it would have in this culture. Instead, she stressed the words “Vietnamese” and “Chinese” (which we would do also), but omitted the stress on the differentiating characteristics. So why did I think that Vietnamese was a tonal language and English is not? “Really,” I said, in genuine amazement. “Which do you prefer?” “Well,” she continued, “my real name Phoung, my nickname Phung. My parent call me Phung, my teacher call me Phoung. Around here, they call me Phung.” “O.K., hun. So Phung it is,” I declare, trying to do things as they do “around here.”

“No,” she said as she pulled out her worksheet. “Phoung is fine.”

Stonewall, Davis, & Lee: We are not daunted

Y’all remember the song Things that make you go hmmm? Many props due to C&C for that one. We incorporated it into regular conversation, and it became a common refrain (often said with raised eyebrows) when things just didn’t add up. Is a perfect sentiment to sum up the entity that is Stone Mountain, Georgia.

If you have not been there, imagine an enormous rounded granite stone on otherwise pretty flat terrain. They say it’s the largest mass of exposed granite in the world, but I sense there is some strange loophole-slash-caveat to that statistic. Perhaps I’m just reluctant to give it that recognition. Like many spaces in this region, Indigenous folks were the first to visit what would become Stone Mountain, several thousand years ago. They say that when the White settlers came with disease and destruction in the 18th century, that previously embattled Indigenous nations collected together to form a coalition. But by the early 19th century, with forced removal and genocide virtually complete, Stone Mountain had become a popular resort spot for White Atlantans. And in 1915, inspired by Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, the Ku Klux Klan was re-established at Stone Mountain. That was about the same time that the Stone Mountain Confederate Association funded the start of what would become the largest tribute to the Confederacy in the world. The place has a troubled past, to say the least.

Last week, we brought the Saturday school students from Refugee Community Center (RCC) to Stone Mountain. The irony was deafening, as we gathered in the parking lot at the foot of the mountain. We were Black Americans, White Americans, Sudanese, Russian, Liberian, Afghani, Rwandan, and Iraqi refugees, Latino and Western European immigrants, and mixtures of all of the above. There we stood, about 25 deep, in a super-multicultural clump on the most uniquely “United Statesian” holiday weekend we have. To be sure, we were thankful to be there and to be together. But the majority of folks in our group hadn’t celebrated Thanksgiving earlier that week.

We huddled together to ward of the chilling wind, and we hustled into the Main building to watch the Stone Mountain Movie. Though I have visited the place before, I must have missed the movie, so I was very interested to see how the story of Stone Mountain would be told. To my surprise, the film said very little about the Confederate “heroes” to whom the Mountain is dedicated. Stonewall Jackson, Jefferson Davis, and Robert E. Lee received about as much air time as it takes to say their name on the video. Nor did the film talk about the Indigenous genocide, the founding of the KKK, or the century-long intentional symbolism of the White South. Instead, the film focused on the feat of creating the monument; indeed it really was quite a feat.

Talking with a few of the students after the film, we agreed that our presence was testament to how things have changed. We laughed at the thought of White supremacists seeing our group; we found strength in confronting the hate of the not-so-distant past.

Such is paradox of Stone Mountain and like places in this country and in our world. The sordid past of such places understandably repels some from visiting them at all. But others gain strength from journeying directly to the jaws of the enemy. From celebrating in spite of – perhaps because of – that same history.

To tell you the truth, it fascinates me. The multiple layers of natural and human history make our every step matter in ways that we may or may not know.

Matter of fact, if anyone wants to head out there with me next Fourth of July, I’m down to roll.