Another Day
A Zimbabwe-born artist in the Midwest struggles to find the right words for this so-called ordinary life
The other day, at midnight, I received a phone call from my mother; she’d been stopped by the police and told me to stay on the line in case something happened. I recorded my screen until the interaction was over. Thankfully, it was nothing. This week, while trying to resolve a conflict between two first-grade boys, one White, the other Black, I heard the white child call the mother of the other child a Nigger. Flabbergasted, I attempted to explain to him the meaning of the word Nigger, why it was hurtful and dehumanizing. He proceeded to use the word three more times after my explanation.
On Monday, a second grader I work with called me a monkey because I’d done something to upset her. I don’t think she knew what that word did to me. Her intent was to hurt, but I don’t think it was to hurt in the way that I ended up feeling hurt. I didn’t know how to explain to her why you don’t call black people monkeys.
Some weeks before, while waiting on a friend in downtown Minneapolis, I saw a man and woman huddle into a corner to unwrap a small white stone, which they put into a glass pipe, heated up, and then smoked. I looked away as soon as they’d finished, feeling I’d seen something I wasn’t supposed to; everyone else around moved as if this were a regular occurrence. That same day at around midnight on a bus, I sat in the center of a trinity; in front of me two men were arguing and behind me sat a man nodding with drool running down his face, struggling to keep his head upright. I witnessed one of the trinity flash a large combat knife to threaten the other. I feared for my life and very desperately wanted to run away but felt any movement from me would agitate him, so I sat still, my heart screaming as it attempted to escape my chest.
On Monday, a second grader I work with called me a monkey because I’d done something to upset her. I don’t think she knew what that word did to me. Her intent was to hurt, but I don’t think it was to hurt in the way that I ended up feeling hurt. I didn’t know how to explain to her why you don’t call black people monkeys. A third-grade student of mine, upon seeing a picture of my mother, exploded into clamorous laughter, screaming, “Why are her lips so big!?” I acted unoffended and attempted to explain anti-blackness and society’s skewed beauty standards to him; my words fell to the ground, swatted by his laughter; I was very sad and ashamed. A little girl, upon finding out I was African, proceeded to tell me how her mother had taught her Africa is where poor people come from and that she was better than them because she was black and not African. I tried to add nuance to the perspective, but she didn’t seem interested in my words; I felt foolish.
Lately I’ve been angry, exhausted, and agitated. I didn’t realize this until my mother called me yesterday while I was at work; she was asking me to help her with something involving technology. I became irritated and impatient at her being unable to follow my directions after one explanation. I waited a few minutes, then I lied and said something urgent came up and I hung up due to frustration. I felt disappointed in myself soon after; I’m usually more patient than that. I called later to apologize to my mother; fortunately, she didn’t take my behavior personally. I took note of what I felt that led me to act the way I did and, later during the day, after work, sat and wrote the mess above. Putting these interactions on paper, I’m realizing that lately I’ve been sitting with a profound sense of humiliation about my identity. I have felt, and continue to feel, extraordinarily repressed and lacking in self-determination. To put it more bluntly, these days I’ve been made to feel like a Nigger.
It is strange to suddenly realize that she too is afraid and feels somewhere within herself this same sense that I do. This sense that my life is at the mercy of strangers who do not know me, and do not care to know me.
Half a year ago I wrote a journal entry prompted by similar circumstances and emotions. I expressed in it how I felt like a Nigger because in many ways (as I’ve highlighted with the words above) this is all society had been telling me and continues to tell me. I don’t actually know the definition of the word Nigger; I doubt many of us truly know. Yet when I ruminate on my experiences as of late, and attempt to make vivid this feeling of ontological insignificance that I am faced with daily, Nigger is the only word that succinctly captures what I feel in my navigation of this society. I’ve found myself, for example, ruminating on the strangeness of this screen recording I now have of my mother; blue and red lights flashing in her face as she awaits the officer to return with her license. I have yet to go back and watch the video; there is an indescribable sense of humiliation at witnessing my mother in that position — helpless and at the mercy of someone she doesn’t know — that’s keeping me from doing so. I feel humiliation and rage at the fact that typically, it is my mother who tries to reassure me that I’m overreacting when I go on my tangents about my distrust of police officers. There’s a strangeness at experiencing my mother, of all people, feeling afraid enough to call me at midnight so I can be witness if anything tragic were to occur. I am disillusioned; my perception of reality feels tampered with; I never imagined to ever see my mother this vulnerable.
It is strange to suddenly realize that she too is afraid and feels somewhere within herself this same sense that I do. This sense that my life is at the mercy of strangers who do not know me, and do not care to know me. It is demoralizing to come to this place of perceiving reality, only to be presented with an even more cruel realization that there is nothing profound in anything I’ve shared thus far. This is simply what it is to exist with black skin. To have happenings that would otherwise make for a well-written ending to a tragedy be our daily bread.
I feel a bit embarrassed by the fact that I still think about the world as though there is some ultimate answer that we, as humans, have not found. That if someone were to find this answer, the world would be a gentler place.
I’m noticing this disillusionment very often these days — this notion that reality isn’t what I imagined it to be. It is laughable in a way, how I am only now coming to these realizations about the world. I feel exposed, standing in front of reality in this way, because I don’t have anything to say. I am now seeing what many have known, and I don’t have an answer. I am only left to laugh at myself as I think back to moments when I’ve spoken with such passion about somehow bringing about change to the world. I feel a bit embarrassed by the fact that I still think about the world as though there is some ultimate answer that we, as humans, have not found. That if someone were to find this answer, the world would be a gentler place.
Confronted with this realization, I am left with the question: Where to now? A question — if I am being honest — I am not sure how to answer. I do suppose, however, if there is anything to be gained from this arrangement of words, it is the very rudimentary understanding that people, past and present, when faced with tragedy, have continued venturing on.
Heshima is a Zimbabwean-born artist currently based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His work navigates the intersection of the African experience with Western culture and attempts to create meaning in the contradiction created as the two cultures converse with one another.
Wow. The directness of this piece just floored me.
it has taken me a couple of days to respond to this. I have reread and reread. It is so simple and so deadly in its aim. I grew up in the Jim Crow South. I saw this daily. The woman who fed me, clothed me, cleaned me up, comforted me, was treated like a minor idiot by my birth mother, who was an alcoholic no longer capable of performing even those simple, loving acts. I grew up to old age in a society that treats women this way all day every day. And so many of us don't even notice. Thank you, Heshima, for your window into Truth. The truth of how difficult it is to be human.