Questions from The Rope Swing

Calley Anderson
Aug 8, 2017 · 11 min read

When I was a kid (think between the ages of 7–11), I lived in Midtown Memphis. I lived across the street from two close friends that I spent almost all my free time with. They were twins, two joyous little white girls, but that difference didn’t phase me at the time. They were simply my team of adventurers — willing to spend a snow day (unsuccessfully) building an igloo or a summer day rolling down a neighbor’s hill. It was carefree fun in the purest form.

One of our favorite adventures was walking to a house about two blocks away that the neighborhood called “The Rope Swing”. It was a beautiful, towering white house with columns, a balcony, trees meant for climbing, a lawn meant for freeze tag, and of course a rope attached to a towering tree. It wasn’t one of those ropes with a seat at the bottom. Just a rope with a knot. Everyone knew this house and the owners who loved to see neighborhood kids enjoying their lawn.

The lawn had a brick wall entryway that we’d use as a launch point for our swing. The wall was about six feet away from the rope, which guaranteed the adrenaline rush you’d be looking for. Steps for a successful swing were as follows:

  • Step 1: Climb the brick wall. Depending on your height and strength, this could require help from you fellow adventurers.
  • Step 2: Have one adventurer bring the rope to you after you’ve climbed the wall. If you happened to be a solo adventurer (which none of our parents would even allow), this part might be tricky (or impossible, I wouldn’t know).
  • Step 3: Grab hold to the highest point of the rope your arms can reach. Once you leave the wall, you want to be high up so your butt doesn’t scrape the brick as you do (this one I do know and yes, it’s quite painful).
  • Step 4: Take a deep breath, lean back, push off the wall and (simultaneously) jump upwards like you’re going to climb the rope. For added effect, have an adventurer push you off the wall.

It sounds complicated, but it became second nature to us. We’d spend endless amounts of time taking turns, pushing each other on this rope. It was the center point of this world we’d created for ourselves. Here, thrill was endless and the fluttering feeling you get in your stomach when you push off the wall never got old. I imagine, if I hadn’t grown up, I would’ve spent my lifetime there.

But I did grow up. I grew up in the way that all black children do: we learn the legacy of our skin and the blood in our veins. Sometimes we learn the hard way via someone else’s projections. Sometimes we learn the more gentle way, most eloquently exemplified by the Procter & Gamble commercial, “The Talk”. Many times, we learn in a mixture and in many stages. I was one of those. It started in second grade as we were learning about monumental phases of American History. One of those phases, of course, was the Civil War. Now, I’m sure my teacher could have taught the basics that a second grader would need to know about the Civil War without mentioning the fight over slavery, but I had a phenomenal (black) woman for a teacher, so that’s not what happened. I don’t remember exactly what she said, but she was sure to inform us that black bodies were enslaved, treated as less than human, and were fought over as property rather than as people. That was the start.

Sure, my world shifted a bit as I got older and learned more about blackness in history, culture, and society. I’m sure there were moments where the Procter & Gamble commercial played out in my own household. I probably learned some interesting things in dealing with my many white friends throughout elementary school. But everyone remembers the moment when you grew up. When life became different. When the pain you’d learned about became much more personal than it had before. When the questions you asked scared you. When you change.

I changed shortly after my first time seeing a picture of a lynching.

I can’t tell you when it happened, but I can tell you how it felt. I remember feeling an aversion to that picture that was stronger than any feeling I’d ever felt. Seeing that photo was indescribable because, to me, the action itself was indescribable. Why would anyone do this? Why would you take a picture of this? Why are there so many people there watching? What did that man have to do to deserve that? Where was his family? Were they dead too? Did they have to see this happen?

I asked questions until my tiny brain felt like mush. The questions never stopped and I didn’t know how to find the answers. But I didn’t want to ask for them, either. I didn’t really want to know them. Yet, for many of those questions, I was pretty sure I was already taught the answers. Slavery. 3/5. 1619. Trans-Atlantic. Confederacy. Jim Crow. Racism. Disenfranchisement. I knew our history. I knew things. Granted, I probably couldn’t tell you what disenfranchisement meant at that age, but I knew black people weren’t allowed to vote and I knew why. It all went back to our legacy and the blood in my veins.

Despite the unanswered questions, I attempted to go back to life as usual. I thought everything would be okay and, if I never saw that picture again, then I’d be fine eventually. The adventurers kept going. We had scooters now, which meant we could travel farther (with permission). We moved faster and time moved slower. Some things never change, though, so we made our sojourn to The Rope Swing. I followed the Steps and gravity whipped me through the air.

I felt the flutter, but it was different. What was once thrill was now fear. Terror. The rope that I clung to felt heavier than it used to. The winding fibers of the rope burned my hands as I flung backwards and forwards. I began to wonder how strong this tree must be to be able to hold a swinging body. I knew that, at any moment, I could jump off the rope and be safely on the ground again, but what if I couldn’t? What if this swinging, the burning feel of this heavy, taut rope, was the last thing I ever felt? What would I do if the white eyes gazing back at me in delight were not relishing in my happiness, but in my agony? My parents knew that I would come back home, but what if they didn’t? What if a black body at a rope never meant anything but death?

Who was I to enjoy the scenery and spectacle that was once the most fearsome sight for those who share my skin and the blood in my veins?

What am I doing here?

I don’t remember ever going back. If I did, I was afraid to touch that rope. If I touched it, it was only to keep the joyous smiles of my adventurers intact. They weren’t grown yet. They didn’t need to be.


When black folks talk about black pain, we talk about our own pain. What everyone else can read about or see in a book and feel a quiet sympathy or remorse for, we have to live through. Our pain spans centuries and is an amorphous entity, but it never leaves us. It is our immediate truth. You simply cannot imagine what it means for a black person to see a lynched body. Or a body in chains. Or a body burned. Or castrated. Or whipped. Or raped. Or riddled with bullet holes. Or left to die .Or any atrocity. You can imagine the pain and injustice. You can fight against the systems that have allowed and continue to allow this to happen. You can “understand” the frustration we feel. But you cannot imagine. Not because you lack the capacity, but because you lack the direct experience.

At nearly every point in my education (I’m 25 and entering graduate school), I have seen or learned about black pain. There has never been a point in my life where I have not seen it. Have not felt it. Have not experienced it for myself. For us, our legacy of adaptability, perseverance, dedication, faith, and general magicianship is inextricably tied to our subjugation and anguish. We are 500% magic, but we are magic because our ancestors had to be. They had to become a type of people that never existed because that was the only way to survive. And even still, many of the bloodlines that are in our veins perished. A lot of us died. A lot of us still die because of the legacy this country built to rally against us. When we die, we see our sisters. When we are broken down, we see our brothers. When we are hurt, we see our mothers. When we are denied even the right to speak up, we see our fathers. We are all, every one of us, tied to each other because of the legacy this nation began in 1619. It doesn’t go away for us. Seeing that pain will always spawn more pain. Pain you can’t imagine because you’ve never had to see your mother whipped in chains or your brother lynched before thousands of people.


I’m old enough now to make choices about what I take in. Many things that are hard, like Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad, Ava DuVernay’s 13th, or the National Museum of African American History and Culture, are worth taking in and worth opening myself up to pain. Some things are not. I won’t outright renounce HBO’s plans for Confederate until I see the writing team, but I can tell you that it is at the very bottom of things I may choose to take in. Ta-Nehisi Coates gives a great perspective on this that I agree with, but that is not the largest reason why I don’t want to open that door.

Asking black people to give this the benefit of the doubt, wait until there’s a finished product to be seen, and not “censor” productions is asking much more than one may think. To many, it’s asking for courtesy and opportunity for a story to live. I get that. I’m a writer myself. There’s always an intrinsic fear of a world I’ve created being threatened, the lives I’ve created never fully getting a chance to live and speak and be outside my own mind. This appears to be along the same wavelength. Yet, because of the subject matter Benioff and Weiss chose, it is much more than that for (potential) viewers, especially black viewers. What they’re actually asking for is a chance to see if the pain they display in their take an our already horrific history will be worth opening up to. They’re asking black people to walk into a world where they are still owned, where society is not shared, and where there is constant subjugation. There may be Daenerys and Jon Snow-esque characters who rise above. There may be Aryas and Briennes and many many redeemable characters thrown into the narrative. But if they choose American slavery as their backdrop, then there will always be slaves and they will always look like me. They won’t all be the Unsullied. There will be no Breaker of Chains, no Mhysa. The masters could be just as fearsome and loathsome as the Lannisters or beloved by the “common people” like the Tyrells. But, at the end of it all, it’s not as straight-out-of-an-alternative-universe as it’s painted to be. Because there are no dragons or White Walkers. No Three-Eyed Ravens or Children of the Forest. There are just people. Real people. That look like those who were enslaved before. That are more than likely direct descendants of slaves. You see this story is real. It isn’t pulled from nothing. This narrative, like much else, is built on the backs of people. People who know pain. Pain that has lasted as many generations as they have.

Out of all the scenes and episodes of Game of Thrones (which I love) that disturbed me, the scene I think about most often is Ramsey Bolton raping Sansa on their wedding night. There’s much commentary about the way Benioff and Weiss have handled rape in the series, so I won’t double down on that. But there’s something about that scene that I’ve never really gotten over: the look on Theon’s face as he watches this happen. That pain that he felt seeing such a horrible act resonated so deeply with me, and it’s not because of who it was (Theon can go kick boulders and walk on Legos for all I care). It’s because of him being forced to be a witness. Being given no choice but to watch someone he loved be abused, hurt, belittled, forced into a position where they are little more than property for someone else’s pleasure. Knowing that anything he could do to stop it could end both of their lives. Really not having the ability to stop it because of the fear already instilled in him from this common aggressor.

If you’re wondering what seeing Confederate would likely feel like for many black people, Theon in this scene is a close marker. There is nothing like seeing black pain and being unable to stop it. There is nothing like witnessing black pain after living and learning a legacy of it. I’ve seen enough black people die to last the rest of my lifetime, even if it only lasts until tomorrow. Why would I choose to see it played out in a scenario that continues the very subjugation that leads me back to that painful photo?

Giving this show a chance isn’t a matter of trust. It’s a matter of experience. That experience you can’t imagine. It’s a matter of knowing what’s out there, knowing what is capable in certain hands. Not even the “wrong” hands, just hands. Like Kathryn Bigelow’s hands with Detroit. Many reviewers have railed against the level and rawness of black torture on display. Others have defended the movie, pointing to her other films and the often visceral nature displayed in her portrayals of violence. To them, the notion is “if you know her work, you should have expected this,” so pointing out how gratuitous and awful it may have been to experience is unfair. To a degree, it’s a fair assertion. But there’s this thing here again, this experience. One that Kathryn Bigelow does not have. The fear of seeing black pain displayed so carefully, to the point where it cannot be forgotten or avoided unless you leave the theater, keeps me from seeing Detroit. It’s that same fear that makes me so cautious about Confederate. Because I know what Benioff and Weiss are capable of. Fantastic storytelling, yes. But it comes at a cost which I’ve watched play out season after season. I don’t want that kind of trauma for people who share my legacy.

I’m not 100% sure that “you” are the person I’m explaining. I may be preaching to a large choir with this one. I don’t presume to know the depths of a person’s soul. But I know enough about a nation’s soul. I’m not 100% sure of this either, but if I ever choose to watch this show (should it come to fruition), I’m sure I’ll be left to answer the same question I asked myself that day at The Rope Swing.

What am I doing here?

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