The Code
On an episode of Blackish, the lead character
a Black man, trying to keep true to ancient African
beliefs, tries to educate his son about the importance
of respecting others, other people of color around him.
and I think of how I, newly exploring not only my
newly freed body, a body scarred by a private war
with a disease that nearly killed me, how I
spreading out the edges of me, become aware
of this code, this silent language of Black men
how we be, how we be when we are trying to stand up
to be heard, to be seen, to keep truth like a gift
and send it off, a bright, rebellious flag in this
world’s angry, unaccepting wind of fear and a broken
song of backward stepping by those who’ve never
known that we are great, we brothers, whether we
were born genetically, or whether, like me, we one day
opened a closet door, stepped out into light, and hands
hands say: “Welcome, my precious one, we been waitin’
we been waitin’ a long, long time.”
by James A. Stansberry [excerpt from the in-process book, Talking With God and Cats]
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