To: The West Indian Day Parade and the Question of Culture.

Photo taken from: Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/06/west-indian-day-parade-2011_n_950135.html#s350250

It's clearly been a while since I've written here, I told a friend this week that I would, and I strive to keep things I give, like promises and such. In that way it becomes half theirs, half mine.

Last weekend was the Labour (yes, that's a 'u' in there, get an English dictionary) Day weekend, and as is customary out here in New York, they had a number of festivities and events all culminating in the street parade on the Monday's holiday. I had missed it all last year, so that this year I sought to do all things West Indian.

On the holiday, two friends crashed at my apartment for our quiet version of Dimanche Gras, and we left home around 5:50am to look for the bands. When we found them, we pretty much just stood along the sides, watching the parade, when one of my friends fell under a strain of culture shock. Her argument was that "this is why feminism is pointless" RE: the behavior of some of the women in the street and their widespread demoralization that seemed to be spilling every which way on the street. I'm thinking that this was why I had distanced myself from Carnival in the first place back at home. It was just the sense of defeat that came from seeing women act a particular way in response to men, not just in dancing, mere behavior, even as an isolated factor, and thinking to myself...so...these are the sisters I'm fighting for...right?

but so goes the story of liberal feminism. here is where the ideology and I meet in the middle of the highway and I refuse to stop and let her in my car. matter of fact, I start speeding. This is my own conviction, and I'm allowed to have one of those. That said,

I really wished I had a camera though (Thank God I didn't), there were so many moments that could have been captured, the sunrise, the masqueraders, the music in the bodies of people, it was beautiful. One thing I am most appreciative over is the traditional music they use for J'ourvet. There are no speaker boxes on music trucks. There are riddim sections, pan-sides, iron-men/women and drums. It was the most organic expression of J'ourvet I've ever been part of.

In the afternoon we spontaneously decided to go to the Parkway for the 'last lappe' which closes off at 6pm, and jumped on a train around 4:40ish to get to President street at around 5pm. We walked out to the corner of Nostrand and Eastern Parkway, after crawling through the most tense, congested crowd I think I've ever been in. 'Tense' because there was some heaviness beyond the humid, beyond the bodies, something was just off. We get to the barricade at the end of the street, and 3 seconds after a woman behind pushes against me and when I turn around, there is a tide of scampering people running towards us and then a shot, sounding like hot ice exploding in a plastic bottle. No echo. Contained. Like a body had absorbed the shock of it.

About 3mins later we were on the train platform, waiting to jump on to the next thing that would take us away from there. My hands were shaking, I could barely text my other friend to tell him to turn his car around and head back home. I got back to my neighbood with an off-beat breathing and a quiet panic in my step. First time for everything, maybe.

After having a week to reflect, I started to think of the 24shootings in 24hrs phenomenon that happened throughout NY state on the Labor Day weekend. Why is it specifically this weekend, when everything is dedicated to "West India" that all these acts of violence happen and at such a rate? I started to question whether it was an issue of us having imported so much of our culture to New York and whether it reflects the increasing violence in our own island home societies. I'm not sure how much of the integrative process of young Caribbean men coming into the New York setting involves some kind of introduction or even re-introduction to criminal activity or behavior, but I'm at a loss for words over the hint of the idea that there may be some cultural connection to the violence. I hope not, but I don't want to dismiss it entirely just yet.

All in all, the day had been mostly enjoyable one for me, but punctuated by few mins that could have cost me my life. I think there can be some more substantial evaluation to take place here.

To: a halfway migration.

I'm currently testing out a new cyberspatial location. I might just use this blog for my journal-type entries and use my new tumblr page for all other things fancy etc.

find me and follow me: http://anayajahzara.tumblr.com/ get to it.

To: Everything We Borrow and Keep as Our Own.

I wonder how difficult it is to embrace the work of the independence movement for the average young person living in a neo-colony like Martinique or another Département D'outre-Mer when that life is all you have known since you have known yourself. What do the names of Cesaire and Fannon register as in the minds of the population within my age group? France and the other respective metropoles (inclusive of the United States) are still the idealist societies and cultures, sought to be replicated in a context of life that continues to not need or benefit from it.

I remember my aunt saying last week of her mother that she reminisces of the days of the British Empire and that if Trinidad was still a colony then we would not have had the crime problem that we do now. I didn't think there were elders who still thought like that. Regardless of how emotional I may feel over a sentiment like that, what I should come to acknowledge is that not everyone is/was in favor of Independence, which actually gives enough evidence of itself in the very word 'dependence'. It is as simple as that.

My friend in Martinique has always wanted to be a model. I recently saw a studio shot of her in a social network update and clearly she is on her way to establishing herself in that career. What struck me however, was how the lighting was arranged and how much more lighter skinned she had been made to look. A stark contrast from her normal, everyday moment, smiling with family and friends photos. It made me consider what is it that we are willing to sacrifice to come by the 'ideal' image or the 'ideal' set of circumstances. What are the type of compromises we are willing to make to get from point A to point B?

How much of ourselves are we willing to lose, to gain some type of perfection by someone else's standards.

To: the promise in Eden.

the poem will not write itself.
the sun will not move to midday position at moontime.
breakfast would not find your stomach through osmosis.
weeds grow where they want, stifle the legit ones,
labor is pain only when you're on your back.
or a maternity ward.
or both.
labor is the world moving itself quarter seconds at a time
how force gets applied to the moving of things.
how the moving of things comes by effort
how everything comes by effort,
how loving you the right way is only by measure of effort.
and Baba said all work is prayer.
I am praying with all the effort in me.

Arielle John

copyright ©2011

To: last week being a week ago.

So the outta dis realm week has more or less closed, the memory is being stored for safe-keeping and BNV tabanca is in full swing. Today was the first day of rest since I came out to California, and every ache and stiff muscle is worth it.

It was none less than beautiful to be surrounded by that energy again and to marvel at the sight of God in other people. The offering of stories, the commitments to change, the urgency for being light. I am eternally grateful for my Future Corps team. Such an amazing collection of minds and momentum. So many people to thank for changing my life this week.

Possibility. the beginning of all things great.

1.	tabanca
	an extreme sadness and/or a depression following one's breakup or seperation from one's significant other. "a gual you ain't hear 'bout Marsha? she home wit some serious tabanca, cuz she and she man done. it was de funniest ting i hear all day."

To: The lesson on Roots and Culture

I've heard Wole Soyinka (world renowned West African writer) talk about the difficulty in having to work with Americans, that is, African Americans having to perform his plays under his direction in the United States. That is, that he has numerous challenges with dance and choreography. I've heard a British educator on TED talks lament how cerebral Europeans are, and what it does to alienate the rest of the body from itself.

I found the colonization at a hip hop concert tonight in Brooklyn. I mean it's Brooklyn though. One of the most culturally black spots on the continent, and it occurred to me to pay attention to my body movements, granted my feet were tired, but it had all been the bobbing of the head, the occasional shift of the torso, with feet planted, not moving. I remember dancing to reggae back home, it was a full involvement of myself, maybe it's because hip hop has so many isolations to it. I found that my dancing has no fluency to it anymore, it's just rigid and definite.

I feel like I need to reclaim that part of myself. The Afro-Caribbean me. There is a core of yourself that becomes ignored in the West. Everything happens above the stomach. I'm also supposed to start taking dance lessons in African cultural dance in the fall. we're also hoping to stage a play, us black women next semester. What is black theater without choreography? Where did this disembodiment of mine come from?

I like what he says in the video below:
On Childhood Education - "As children start to grow up, we educate them from the waist up, and then we focus on their heads,... and slightly to one side."
On Academia- "If you want real evidence of out of body experiences by the way, get yourself a long to a residential conference of senior academics and pop into the discotheque on the final night.And there you will see it, grown men and women riving uncontrollably...off the beat."





I haven't been keeping up with my blog lately not because I don't have the time, because surely, it's something you need to make time for. I just don't know how to make sense of my last month. That is, my return home as relates to my parents, friends, who embraced me, who pushed me away, things I wish I could've made better, decisions we've had to come by, I just don't feel settled about things yet. Maybe vacation has an interruptive way of making days, and I will be more definitive when I get back to a routine.

I'm waiting on a response from CUNY to see if they accept my proposal for my own study path of Applied Theater. It's the same anxiety of having applied for your first choice college. I pray they accept it though. Also, BNV in San Fransisco is coming up in less than a week, which means i have poems to finish and to learn and to work out performances for. I'm both really hyped and anxious over it all.

I thank God for the men in my life tonight, for those who've encouraged and supported me in these last few weeks, days, hours. For my lover, my father, my brothers back at home like Gamma, Chike, Jabari, even uncle Mark for tonight. They are crucial to my survival out here more than I may like to admit sometimes, and have been here. always. I miss my real friends.

To: The Commotion on My Head.

My mother asked me before I came home, what would I be doing with my hair. I'm somewhat accustomed to hearing this question from her. It hardly bothers me anymore. She's adjusted to the idea that I can wear it as I like in New York, and a full-scale afro does nothing to irk the public. In the conservatives of my nativity space however, it's a similar sentiment Sa'nia expressed last week when talking about her journey as Rastafarian and the worry of parents that society will push us out, because we look a certain way, or celebrate life differently from the norm.

My mother is closer to the oriental end in my family tree, her hair doesn't twist like mine, less spiral more slick. My father is African and at any opportunity would acknowledge the end of 'Spanish Blood' showing itself in his hair texture. These are the genes that groomed my hair to itself. Since my mother took her 'big chop' years long ago before I was even born, she's consistently had (along with my other aunt) the same hairdresser/s.

I grew up waiting for my mother at hair salons, getting her monthly haircut to sangeet radio and airwave bajhans. I embraced it. More than ten years later, I found myself at the salon of the same hairdresser, friend of my mother. I could understand the buzz behind the blinds, how they calculated how they were going to deal with my hair, what would be the best way to approach the goliath, how to develop a plan d'action to combat the mass. I showed up, right? She couldn't possibly tell me I was in the wrong place.

In the space of four hours, all of staff, all of clients, all of everyone there were East Indian, looking at me with a curious I forgot about until then. They were uneasy throughout the process, one kept asking whether she was pulling too hard (when she was hardly), one gave up when the comb wasn't going through and called for back up. One even had the groin to ask whether I was going to flat iron when I was finished, as though it was the only acceptable thing to do, to complete the look, I can't possibly be having my hair out the way I had it before. I remembered how I should not let all this bother me, because of who I am, because of whose child I am. But remembering doesn't soothe things over enough sometimes.