The Life of Jordan Edwards 2002-17

I know and you know that blogposts and facebook posts don’t save lives. I know they can’t change much that is wrong with the world but when a life is lost for an apparently unjust reason, they do say one thing: that life matters.

Because every word or expression of regret or prayer on behalf of a bereaved family is acknowledgement that a life snuffed out in a minute is still a life to be honored.  That life is not gone but alive in the memory and the hearts of loved ones.  That God given life is also alive in the hearts of others moved by their story.

Fifteen year old Jordan Edwards was such a life.   Jordan Edwards was shot by an officer in a suburb outside of Dallas on April 29 of this year.  Jordan and his brothers and friends were leaving a party that they feared was getting rowdy.  They got into their vehicle and attempted to drive off but were met with bullets shot by the police car behind them.  The police body cam verified their story and the police department subsequently fired the officer who shot and killed Jordan. That officer is now facing murder charges.

Let that sink in.  That officer is now facing murder charges. We know for complicated reasons young black men die at the hands of each other far too often  in our inner cities and that is just as egregious and needs serious attention. Policemen also lose their lives in the line of duty and that is equally upsetting. But the bottom line is that the police are the professionals.  We need them. We depend on them to protect and serve.  

So today and every time that a young man or woman’s life has been cut short in questionable circumstances, I hope to honor them. I hope to remember them in love and recount the story told in Ta Nehisi Coates’ insightful book,  Between the world and me about a young friend whose life was cut short:

Think of all the love poured into him. Think of the gasoline expended, the treads worn carting him to football games, basketball tournaments, and Little League.  Think of the time spent regulating sleepovers.  Think of the surprise birthday parties, the daycare and the reference checks on babysitters. Think of World Book and Childcraft. Think of checks written for family photos.   Think of credit cards checked for vacations. Think of soccer balls, science kits, chemistry sets, racetracks, and model trains.    Think of all the embraces, all the private jokes, customs, greetings, names, dreams, all the shared knowledge and capacity of a black family injected into the vessel of flesh and bone.  And think of how that vessel was taken, shattered on the concrete, and all its holy contents, all that had gone into him, sent flowing back to the earth.

Jordan Edwards' life matters to his friends and loved ones.  
His life also matters to me.

Anne C.Bailey
https://www.annecbailey.net

John Tubman’s side of the story (Harriet's husband) and the Irrationality of Slavery

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about Harriet Tubman’s journey from an oppressed and beleaguered slave to a free woman who then turned around and led others to freedom.  The turning point for Harriet was when she was faced with perhaps the toughest decision of her life.  At the time that she had escaped slavery in Maryland in 1849, she was married to a free man named John Tubman.  Through a number of clandestine routes, she made her way to Philadelphia.  After two years there, Harriet had saved enough to return to Maryland with the intention of convincing John to come away with her.  She bought him a very fine suit and sent word that she was there. But John sent word back that he had remarried and had no plans to return to Philadelphia with her.

This was a moment of great devastation and disappointment for Harriet but she not only soldiered on, she gave the suit to another man and helped him escape to freedom.  Many of you reacted with horror that John Tubman had made such a choice.  “He did what?” was the general reaction with some of you posting  chuckles and knowing smiles.  “He moved on !  He moved on?” How could he marry again when he was already married..and to Harriet Tubman no less!

That was the general sentiment so it is safe to say that most of my readers were on Team Harriet. Well, on one level, I was in complete agreement and I loved reading your reactions to her heartbreaking moment of truth.

At the same time, I couldn’t help but feel a bit for John Tubman.  What was his side of the story?  History does not tell us much, but from what we know of the times, we can guess that it was not easy for him either.   Many things about John Tubman life’s point to the irrationality of slavery, pure and simple. 

Imagine, he is a free man but he falls in love with a slave. He marries her but even this marriage may not have been legally binding since many slaves were not allowed the privilege of legal marriage. Furthermore, he cannot live with her like any normal man and wife. He cannot decide when and how to have children. If they do have children, those children are not his…oh no, they belong to the master.  Beginning first in Virginia in 1662, with the other colonies and states following suit, laws were enacted that clearly stated that slavery follows the condition of the mother.  This was all the more ironic in a patriarchal land but not patriarchal for the man of color.

John Tubman had few rights that a white husband would enjoy. More than anything, he could not stop the beatings or other kinds of punishments meted out to his wife because she was not his.  The only option for someone in his position would have been to try to purchase his wife from the master.  Still, this was not a foregone conclusion because: 1) the master would have to agree and 2) the cost might be prohibitive. Whatever small income he was able to eke out would not likely have been enough.

So.,.. does this excuse Mr. John Tubman from finding another love in the two years that Harriet was away?  Was he right to seemingly forget all about his wife  without even trying to get word to her that he might marry someone else?  Why didn’t he, as a free man, you may ask, set out to find his wife in the first place? Presumably, if he was free, he had what they call “free papers” which would have allowed him passage to the free states.

But again, as Twelve Years A Slave, the slave narrative turned movie brought so powerfully to light, freedom even for a free man in the time of slavery was not guaranteed.  He could be kidnapped by some nefarious trader; his papers could be destroyed and he would have nothing to prove his free status.  Free people, it turns out, tended not to venture too far away from their place of origin.  Just in case they ran into any trouble, white people in the area who knew them to be free could vouch for them.

Such was the rational irrationality of slavery.  So this is all to say, I am still on Team Harriet but I think I have a feeling too for brother John Tubman.  In a crazy system where people had a price and where money was more important than relationships, can we really blame him?

Sources:

Act XII, Laws of Virginia, December 1662

Anne C. Bailey

https://www.annecbailey.net

                      

In the Debates about Immigration, "Foreign" is also a Noun.

At least once a month, I want to preview a new book.  This month, I am happy to preview That Time In Foreign by my Jamaican colleague, Dr. Hilary Robertson Hickling.

For those not familiar with Jamaican vernacular, yes, foreign can be a noun as well as an adjective. As a noun, it refers to the many places to which Jamaicans have migrated over the years, in particular the US, Canada and the UK.  Hickling’s book is a result of drawing together conference participants on the topic some ten years ago –all of whom spent time in disparate parts of the globe for work, study or permanent residence.  These men and women share in this book all the ups and downs of the migrant experience.  Notwithstanding a number of great successes, many of these returning migrants also share struggles with racism, exclusion and mental illness. 

Dr. Hickling has devoted much of her career to studying the impact of migration on those who travel to “foreign,” and in so doing, washes away some of the fantasies of streets paved with gold that in spite of experiences to the contrary remain strong in the minds of many.

Of note, however, are some of the great anecdotes in this book from her own experience in Birmingham, England with her husband and esteemed psychiatrist and scholar, Dr. Fred Hickling.  In the 1990’s, both Hicklings took up residence in Birmingham to address a mental health crisis that had been developing over the years in Britain amongst the African Caribbean immigrant population.  Dr. Fred Hickling was already well known for undertaking groundbreaking research on mental health issues in the Caribbean and became a consultant psychiatrist at the North Birmingham Mental Health Trust.

During this period, Dr. Hilary was also a mentor in a school in the community.  She remembers clearly one black student telling her, “I never met a black doctor.”  Dr. Hilary was taken aback that this young woman whose parents were from Jamaica had no idea of the long tradition of blacks in medicine in Jamaica.  Isolated in a world which was at best ambivalent about her presence, she knew nothing of the tradition of black doctors going back a century–many of whom had studied in England and returned to Jamaica or worked in countries all around the world. 

Dr. Hickling could only wonder: What impact did it have on young people mentally - -not to see black doctors in their midst?  To have such a fragmented sense of identity that they did not know that such people even existed.  For one thing, it is clear  that that was one dream that they could NOT envision. We can’t help but see the irony too of people going to foreign for better opportunities and to realize greater dreams yet leaving behind some of the role models that make those dreams seem possible.  This anecdote gives us a taste of the complexity of the migrant experience and the issues it raises.  It is an important set of voices that Dr. Hickling has unleashed that we need to hear now more than ever when debates about immigration are afoot all around the globe.

No one leaves their country of origin easily. There are costs and there are benefits. This book helps us critically look at both sides with the big picture in mind.   In a broader sense, foreign is a noun. It is a place to negotiate, to contend with and sometimes to fight for – with the goal of gaining a sense of identity and a foothold in a brave new world.

Sources:  This Time in Foreign,  Hilary Robertson-Hickling

See also re: debate about role models:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/20/opinion/where-did-all-the-black-teachers-go.html?_r=0

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775715000084

Anne C. Bailey

https://www.annecbailey.net

Turning Point: Harriet Tubman and the suit that she bought for her husband

Harriet Tubman was born a slave in Dorchester county in the state of Maryland.  In 1844, while still a slave, she married a free man called John Tubman, but in 1849 upon hearing that she and several of her brothers were to be sold, she planned a daring escape.   She found her way from one safe house to another till she eventually came to Pennsylvania where for the first time she tasted what it was like to be free.

But as it turned out, freedom for herself alone was not enough.  She could not enjoy her freedom without her loved ones.  So she headed back to Maryland through clandestine routes with her first thought being to convince her husband to join her up North.  The story goes that she bought a brand new suit for her husband with her earnings from kitchen work in Philadelphia.  She snuck back into Dorchester County and at a safe house there sent word to her husband inviting him to return with her to the North.

John Tubman, however, would have no part in that little plan. He sent word back that he had married again and was not leaving the county.  Can you imagine the horror that Tubman must have felt?  Here she was with a brand new suit for the man she loved who had effectively moved on.

What happens next is one of the reasons I love Harriet Tubman as much as I do.  We know her as one of the brave conductors of the Underground Railroad, but do we know her as a woman?   That same year, 1851, but in another state, anti- slavery activist, Sojourner Truth was speaking at a Woman’s Convention.  In reference to the starkly different ways black women and white women were treated she boldly asked:  “Aren’t I a woman?”

 It is as if Tubman had answered vigorously, “Oh yes I am!”

The records don’t say but in my mind’s eye I imagine her picking out just the right suit, just the right color and fit and pinning her hopes and dreams on the suit and the man that would wear it.   She then voluntarily leaves relative safety in the North to come back for that man only to hear that he has moved on! Moved on?

The best part, however, is what Harriet did next.   I figure she had three choices:

1)     Wallow in self -pity that her man had chosen someone else;

2)     Decide to go back up north and settle into life as a free black or

3)     Give the suit to another man and help him get to the north.

Well, being Harriet Tubman, she chose the third option and the rest is history. It was a real turning point for her and she could have made the wrong turn, but she didn’t.

In the end, she did marry again many years later after her countless trips “stealing slaves” from the South.  She married a man 22 years her junior, a civil war veteran like herself whom she met on the battlefield and who built her a brick house after the wooden house on her property burned down.

I am just so glad that she turned the right way.

Sources

Bound for Canaan by Fergus M. Bordewich

Aren’t I a Woman by  Deborah Gray White

Anne Bailey
https://annecbailey.net/

The kind of 19th century suit that Harriet may have bought for her husband.

Picture credit: https://www.tumblr.com/search/victorian%20african%20americans