by: The Ignant Intellectual
Our memory can be wrong. The way we remember things is sometimes not how things happened in reality. Fifteen years ago, I withdrew from a sociology PhD program at The University of Wisconsin-Madison. I had not returned to Madison since leaving in 2009. Recently, I spent three days in Madison and on my last full day there, I decided to walk to the building that houses the sociology department. I recently realized that I still had unresolved trauma stored in my body from that experience and felt like walking the halls of that building would allow me to release what was left inside of me. It would allow me to forgive the institution, certain people and most importantly, forgive myself. As I walked up to the building, it was as if I had never been there before. It looked nothing like I remember. Nothing. To the point where I was like “Well maybe I use to come in from another direction”. I remember the buildings along the walk there but I simply did not feel like I was entering a building that I had entered at least 100 times before. Or more. I walked inside, a few things I vaguely remembered. Heavy on the vague. But NOTHING about it was firmly rooted in my memory. As I’d expected. I mean I’d had vivid recollections. I’d had solid memories. I’d talked to friends about classes we took about exams we had. Conversations. And in those moments, I had imagery in my mind. Colors. Angles. Hallways. Offices. Doors. But when I walked up to the actual building, went inside and got off the elevator on the appropriate floor, it was as if I was entering for the first time. Save the glass office where we used to drop off exams, register, and access certain things. That looked very familiar. But overall, the sociology floor was smaller and less eventful than I remember. Our memories can be wrong. What we remember can in actuality be smaller than we remember. Less eventful than we remember. Less grand than we remember. Less big than we remember. And sometimes going back and revisiting physical spaces can free us up from what our memory says is so big. So important. So grand. So pretty. Every time I enter the home of a relative who still lives in the same house they did when I was little, I think DAMN this house felt bigger when I was a kid. Every. Single. Time. Our memory can be wrong. The way we remember things is sometimes not how they are in reality. You see, time is not linear. It’s not just the clock and calendar that moves. So do we. We expand. We contract. We have experiences. We grow. We get taller. We get wider. Life lifes. This impacts our today’s perspective on the past. Our memory can be wrong. The way we remember things is sometimes not how they are in reality. Today. Sometimes we gotta revisit places to get our healing. Because if we leave it to memory alone, we will assign things a value that’s too big for its reality. We will remember it as more eventful than it is today. More grand than it is. Today. And dare I say, more grand than it ever was. Our memory can be wrong. ----------------------------------------- The Ignant Intellectual is: Capital 'B' Black. Big Dream Dreamer. Patricia's Only Child. Thought Leader. Lover. Social & Cultural Critic. Published Writer. Speaker. Social Justice Trainer & Facilitator. Spelman Dude. New Orleanian. Non-Conformist. The Bridge Between The Hood & The Ivory Tower. The Ignant Intellectual. Kind, Not Nice. Master-Procrastinator-In-Recovery. Analog Kid Trapped In A Digital Adulthood. Affectionate Asshole. Hood Historian. Nostalgia Nomad. Random Minor Note You Hear In Major Songs.
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by: The Ignant Intellectual
I didn't have an actual bedroom set until I was a senior in college and moved into my very first apartment. My mama bought it. I remember being around 10 years old and we went to the furniture store. I picked out a bedroom set. Light wood. Had some carved designs on it. Swirls and such. It never arrived. I never asked why. My mama never mentioned it. I already knew why. I slept on the same twin size daybed from the time I was out of the crib until Katrina when I was 27. It had a twin size trundle underneath for when a friend spent the night. Even during home visits from college, I slept on that bed. my mama never got rid of it. I think it was her way of telling me that any time anything went wrong, I could always come home. I don't remember ever having a friend spend the night. Just my little cousin, Necie, on occasion. I spent the night at her house way more often. I was embarrassed to have anyone at mine. It was raggedy, yet clean. The roof leaked. the front gate was loud as fuck. it leaned on one side until my mom literally got it lifted professionally by a company that leveled homes. Wait. I lied. I had a slumber party once. And in college, two friends came home with me during a break. My anxiety was through the roof both times. What if it started raining and the roof went to leaking. What if the toilet backed up. What if the tub wouldn’t drain quickly. What if my uncle came home drunk. What if he and my grandmother started arguing next door and we could hear it through thin ass walls. God forbid, what if a cockroach made an appearance! What if someone saw something and they clowned me. What if they said nothing but went back home and said everything. I would have people drop me off at another house that wasn't mine. A house that was much nicer. it was leveled. It had an automatic storm light that would come on when you approached and a side door & a little nook I could disappear into so people really thought I had gone inside safely and would drive off. I would wait till they pulled off and walk to my real house a block away. How I found that house and started pulling that stunt is beyond me. As a kid, I had a host of things in my mind that made me think a family was rich.
The other furniture pieces in my childhood bedroom were usually makeshift (read: repurposed) from something not at all designed to be a chest of drawers or a chifferobe or a shoe rack. Thrift stores were my best friend. Pants were repurposed as shorts. Long sleeve shirts were repurposed as short sleeved ones. T-shirts that I liked but were too long were repurposed as crop tops. During that time there was also the occasional sleeping with my mom or grandmother. My mother worked nights my whole life and I used to stay next door at my grandmother's house while she worked. After complaining enough about my grandmother's snoring, my mama got a cot that folded in half. My grandmother's living room was repurposed nightly as my bedroom. I'd sleep there, in my grandmother's living room, between the big oak table and a huge out-of-tune piano. not a soul in my house played the piano. I vividly remember my repurposed alarm clock. It was the sound of the Times Picayune newspaper hitting the front porch after being tossed by the paper boy. 5:45am. Like clockwork. I know because my minnie mouse watch underneath my pillow told me so. When I was in 11th grade or so, my grandmother told me that I was too old to be sleeping on that cot. So, she let me sleep on my side of the house in my own bed while my mom worked night shift. We would communicate via knocks on the wall. That's how she would wake me up in the morning. I would knock back on the wall to let her know I was awake and getting dressed for school. It was our secret. To this day, I don't think my mom knows. To this day, I repurpose poverty. Even though, financially, I don't usually have to. It is a matter of habit at this point. I firmly believe that growing up poor, births creativity. It's likely that I'll never purchase a matching bedroom or living room set ever again. They're too matchy matchy. I seldom wear full suits. they're too matchy matchy. I love thrift stores and consignment stores for that reason. They let my creative juices run wild. A couch here. A chair there. A blazer here. Trousers there. I will forever repurpose poverty. I will never let a matchy-matchy world tell me that my thrift store expertise isn't valuable. I've never shopped off mannequins and I never will. Although kids who did were on my list of things that made me think someone was rich back when i was a kid. When I lived in Queens NYC, I decorated my bedroom FRFR. The first time as an adult I really got into it. I exhumed my 16 year old self and allowed their vision of creating something amazing out of limited resources run wild! It was too cute! I have a queen sized bed now and have had a king in the past. Howzeneva...I'd give so much to sleep in that twin daybed (or that cot) just one more night. One night in New Orleans. One more night with my grandma. She would have turned 104 this past April. I wonder what she’d think of 2024. I will forever repurpose poverty. ----------------------------------------- Author (Zerandrian Morris) is: Capital 'B' Black. Big Dream Dreamer. Patricia's Only Child. Thought Leader. Lover. Social & Cultural Critic. Published Writer. Speaker. Social Justice Trainer & Facilitator. Spelman Dude. New Orleanian. Non-Conformist. The Bridge Between The Hood & The Ivory Tower. The Ignant Intellectual. Kind, Not Nice. Master-Procrastinator-In-Recovery. Not The Only Zerandrian. Analog Kid Trapped In A Digital Adulthood. Affectionate Asshole. Hood Historian. Nostalgia Nomad. Random Minor Note You Hear In Major Songs. by: The Ignant Intellectual
Language is an institution. Mastery of a particular piece of it, either grants or denies access. Language holds systematic power. The closer one stays to the language of the ruling class, the more access one is granted. The further away one moves, the more one is denied access to a specific piece of society. The hood thrives off of conceptual conversations, long windedness, explaining ideas. For years, I struggled keeping up because I am conceptual learner. I am long winded. I need to understand the idea before I'll ever remember the word for it. The ruling class is based on concise. Short phrases. One word for a huge idea. Language blocks folk who can do the work from even knowing they can do the work because of the mastery of a specific language. The hood and the ivory tower say the exact same thing. Just that the ivory tower is validated because it speaks according to the ruling class' ideals. When, arguably, the hood is better at explaining things conceptually. The ivory tower develops one word that means an entire idea then shuts the folk out who don't master the one word. Even if that idea was appropriated from those very people. The ideals of the ruling class have shifted our thinking into validating short phrases and folk who can explain things in a concise way. Concise is ruling class. Long windedness and full explanations are shamed. Words like oppression, hegemony, privilege, micro aggressions, etc are all experienced day in and out in the very environments that are shut out of these conversations because they don't use those words. APA format is a ruling class ideal. It is mastered within the walls of the ivory tower. The Ivory Tower has monetized the everyday lexicon of 'regular folk' and sold it to those who can afford it and shut out those who created it. Aint that some shit. ----------------------------------------- The Ignant Intellectual is: Capital 'B' Black. Big Dream Dreamer. Patricia's Only Child. Thought Leader. Lover. Social & Cultural Critic. Published Writer. Speaker. Social Justice Trainer & Facilitator. Spelman Dude. New Orleanian. Non-Conformist. The Bridge Between The Hood & The Ivory Tower. The Ignant Intellectual. Kind, Not Nice. Master-Procrastinator-In-Recovery. Analog Kid Trapped In A Digital Adulthood. Affectionate Asshole. Hood Historian. Nostalgia Nomad. Random Minor Note You Hear In Major Songs. by: The Ignant Intellectual
So often, the people excluded from conversations are those who don't speak academic language, or a particular type of English. However, the other day, I witnessed the most magical thing. There was an older man in Core Workshop. Around 55 or 60. Black. Salt and pepper hair. Rich Chocolate skin. Named Lucas. He is one of our pest control employees who...controls pests. He was interesting. He reminded me of a grandpa mixed with an uncle. He pressed me for my activist credentials. I think he initially read me solely as a high-falutin academic who spends all their time around white folk in elite institutions and has either lost or never had regular degular street experience. Let me tell you how difficult you Blacks are! And how off y'all be in reading people. So once I passed his never-ending battery of tests ending in me saying "Lucas. You can't train or workshop people into equity. And I say that as the agency's Lead Trainer who spends a lot of time training people. Ain't the agency still racist?!". It was then that he gave me that old Black man smirk of approval. You know the one. And he relaxed. So over the course of the workshop, something is happening that I didn't initially realize was happening. Most white folk and many of the non-Black people of the global majority are slowly becoming excluded from the convo. All because of how Lucas, myself, and like 10 other participants are framing concepts. Lucas has an astute analysis, and Lucas speaks in what I have long-ago termed..."pimp riddles". The only people I know who speak in "pimp riddles" are Black people. Not POC. Black people. The main Black people who speak in "pimp riddles" are older Black people. Mostly men. With Southern roots. Black American Black men with Southern roots, to be specific. And the younger ones who do, have old souls. If, upon reading the phrase "pimp riddles", you don't immediately have an idea of what it is...I can't explain no further than that. IYKYK. So anyway, the convo is great IMO but I didn't realize what made it so great was that we were framing things and speaking in ways that are seldom included in astute theoretically-based conversations...had in public...at work...around white folk. We got to spend a lot of time talking about equity, and racism, and ANTI Blackness like your uncle and cousins and grandma talk about it. Long winded vs concise. Conceptually vs singular words/quick phrases. Qualitatively vs quantitatively. Experientially vs theoretically. What a lovely day that was!! It was quite an interesting spin on "accessible language". For once, accessible meant that Black folk understood it. Ok. Bye. ----------------------------------------- Author (Zerandrian Morris) is: Capital 'B' Black. Big Dream Dreamer. Patricia's Only Child. Thought Leader. Lover. Social & Cultural Critic. Published Writer. Speaker. Social Justice Trainer & Facilitator. Spelman Dude. New Orleanian. Non-Conformist. The Bridge Between The Hood & The Ivory Tower. The Ignant Intellectual. Kind, Not Nice. Master-Procrastinator-In-Recovery. Not The Only Zerandrian. Analog Kid Trapped In A Digital Adulthood. Affectionate Asshole. Hood Historian. Nostalgia Nomad. Random Minor Note You Hear In Major Songs. by: The Ignant Intellectual
Seldom do I hear folk speak of this publicly. But it AIN'T EASY outchea for transgender queer-gender & gender-nonconforming folk and dating. And I'm speaking on our bodies and when those bodies don't conform to gender. When boobs meet beard meet chiseled bodies meet vagina meet hairy chests/belly, folk struggle. When boobs meet penis meets the Apple of Adam, folk are in a frenzy. HOWZENEVA, we are cute and intriguing as phuk because gender phukery is intriguing...but none of that seems to impact years of gender socialization. Years of rigid binaries. Straight women find themselves attracted to transmasculine folk but don't know WTF to do with it because they don't know how it will impact their own sexuality. We're too much this. Not enough that. MANY cis-men are attracted to transwomen. Ask Eddie Murphy, Mister Cee, Teddy P, and Tevin Campbell. We are both repulsive and intriguing. And the result is a vomiting of all this angst onto the bodies of trans and GNC people. Resulting in many folk feeling undesirable. When really they are VERY desired but others are unable to box their desires of us. This isn't a pity party. This is reality. Dating someone whose very existence flips a construct so rigid as gender on its head takes a special someone to walk in and with that. Affirmingly. Not I can deal with it, but I AFFIRM AND LOVE IT! It is sexy to me. Flip side, I get it. I understand how something as deep and ingrained as this can be difficult. Ideally folk would allow themselves the freedom to like who they like. But... ----------------------------------------- Author (Zerandrian Morris) is: Capital 'B' Black. Big Dream Dreamer. Patricia's Only Child. Thought Leader. Lover. Social & Cultural Critic. Published Writer. Speaker. Social Justice Trainer & Facilitator. Spelman Dude. New Orleanian. Non-Conformist. The Bridge Between The Hood & The Ivory Tower. The Ignant Intellectual. Kind, Not Nice. Master-Procrastinator-In-Recovery. Not The Only Zerandrian. Analog Kid Trapped In A Digital Adulthood. Affectionate Asshole. Hood Historian. Nostalgia Nomad. Random Minor Note You Hear In Major Songs. |
Zerandrian S. MorrisI am a social and cultural critic. Archives
January 2025
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