{"id":40017,"date":"2015-02-17T19:47:55","date_gmt":"2015-02-17T19:47:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=40017"},"modified":"2016-03-30T14:58:23","modified_gmt":"2016-03-30T14:58:23","slug":"once-white-in-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=40017","title":{"rendered":"Once White in America"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once White in America<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Nation of Change<\/a>
\n2015-02-16<\/p>\n

Jane Lazarre<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Jane Lazarre provides a very intimate post-Ferguson<\/a> view of what it means to her to raise her two black sons in the “afterlife of such a world.” Are we living in a world of American barbarism?<\/em><\/p>\n

For Adam and Khary<\/em><\/p>\n

Black bodies<\/em>
\nswingin\u2019 in<\/em>
\nthe summer<\/em>
\nbreeze<\/em>
\nstrange fruit hangin\u2019 from the poplar trees<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It was 1969 and 1973, both times in early fall, when I first saw your small bodies, rose and tan, and fell in love for the second and third time with a black body, as it is named, for my first love was for your father. Always a word lover, I loved his words, trustworthy, often not expansive, sometimes even sparse, but always reliable and clear. How I \u2014 a first-generation Russian-Jewish girl \u2014 loved clarity! Reliable words \u2014 true words, measured words, filled with fascinating new life stories, drawing me down and in. The second and third times I fell in love with black bodies I became a black body, not Black, but black in a way I\u2019d say without shame and some humor, for mine is dark tan called white. But I am the carrier, I am the body who carried them, released on a river of blood.<\/p>\n

Am I black in a cop\u2019s hands when he is pushing, pressing hard for dope or a gun or a rope or a knife or a fist?\u00a0 I am not a black body, yet my body is somehow, somewhere, theirs \u2014 Trayvon\u2019s<\/a>, Emmett\u2019s<\/a>, thousands more at the end of a rope\u2019s tight murderous swing, black as a night stick splits my head, shatters my chest, black as a boy not yet a man walking toward a man with a gun, suddenly shot dead, a just-become man walking down the stairs toward a gun, black as a tall man, a big man, looking strong but pleading for his breath<\/a>, killed by choking arms and bodies piled on top of his head.<\/p>\n

Walking the sidewalks of my city in the morning, I dodge white dads\u2019 bikes daily, their little toddlers strapped into a back seat, and I don\u2019t mind as riding in the street or wide, traffic-filled avenues does seem a dangerous way to get to nursery school. Later in the morning, when I am still walking, the white fathers or mothers bike by me again, now with the back seats empty. I look around for police, wondering if there will be a ticketing for riding on the sidewalk, since no child\u2019s safety is at stake.\u00a0 No cops in sight. My great-nephew, young and black and not fully grown, was stopped and handcuffed by police a month ago for riding his bike on the sidewalk,\u00a0 his often glazed eyes glazing more deeply now…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once White in America Nation of Change 2015-02-16 Jane Lazarre Jane Lazarre provides a very intimate post-Ferguson view of what it means to her to raise her two black sons in the “afterlife of such a world.” Are we living in a world of American barbarism? For Adam and Khary Black bodies swingin\u2019 in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1467,8,394,20],"tags":[5559,19361],"class_list":["post-40017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-law","category-media-archive","category-socialscience","category-usa","tag-jane-lazarre","tag-nation-of-change"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40017"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46298,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40017\/revisions\/46298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}