BlackSky, BookSky

A few little thoughts by Tayé Foster Bradshaw on this Monday of the Resistance

In the week since the nightmares began on the day we celebrated a man named King, I, like so many others, found ourselves trying to find solace and silence from the noise. We turned to those who told us stories and helped us find our way through. We turned to books.

For me, I’ve read White Poverty by Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II that helped me understand the plight of the white impoverished who make up the majority of those in America who are in that class. What is it about their psyche and their unwillingness to fight for their own liberation? Did the promise of whiteness and the privilege that holds keep them from uniting with their Black and Brown kin? Those were questions carried into the reading and some of what he considered, through a theological lens, when he gathered folks in the Hollers of Appalachia and the poor areas of North and South Carolina. They found they had more in common with African Americans – regardless of educational status and economic class – than they did with the oligarchs manipulating them through emotional targeting. Good book, even if a certain new opportunist Vice President is briefly mentioned in one of the chapters.

Other books I’ve read and/are still engaging include The Black Joy Playbook by Tracey Michae ‘l Giggetts that invites me, as an African American woman, to remember my joy – bodily. I did things, since December 1st actually, like going into my childhood to feel the exhilaration of a swing or the excitement of playing jacks, the freedom to roam my hometown and explore the library, she invited us to not loose those places of happiness, regardless of what the world around us was saying. That message resonates with me even more now.

Intellectual curiosity has always been a hallmark of my life and so I am engaging with American Slavery by Peter Kolchin. This was a used textbook I recently picked up at RJ Julia/Wesleyan Bookstore in Middletown Connecticut. It talks about the economic beginning of this very American enterprise, but also that it stretches back to other times and continents. The insidiousness of the American peculiar institution is the central discussion. I’m still reading it and have to take it in chunks. I’m the 5th generation (that we are able to trace) on my maternal-maternal side and the 7th on my maternal-paternal side. All in this country, all here because someone kidnapped one or more of my ancestors.

Because it all can’t be gloom-and-doom, I picked up a copy of Nnedi Okorafor’s new book, The Death of the Author. All I can say is that this Igbo writer is a master storyteller. I spent Sunday morning deeply engaging with the central character, Zelu, a wheelchair-bound writer, recently fired adjunct professor, and all around fiercely independent woman determined to live her life outside cultural expectations of a second generation Nigerian American.

The other thing I did for my sanity is join Bsky.social and have to say that I am really enjoying the space. It is not all politics and not all about what the orangemenacepumpkingdevil and his minions are doing to try to destroy the country. There is a lot of solidarity, a lot of resistance, and a lot of humanity. Find me there at @antonatonitaye.bsky.social. Note, I block all bots, all porn, all MAGAs, and all otherwise deplorable. It is a really cool place and I haven’t made a “starter pack” yet but have been engaging in #booksky and #blacksky.

This is what I know and have been doing for decades. Words matter, books matter, and doing whatever you can to resist the disinformation , also matters. We will get through this with our humanity, one word at a time.