Shades of Sable

I think back. To all the minor moments in my history where questions filled me with joy and wonderment — when curiosity excited and pained me from within. At times the questions we ponder are seldom asked, and if they are not asked, then the answer — that moment of truth unfolding like the day after a hurricane — will forever be silenced and unheard. I am a memory within the memories of silencing myself. The desire and curiosity welled up within me, but fear stopped me from asking.

Then I grew older. The urge came back to ask and seek answers to what is now lost in the thicket of time — the memories and knowledge died with the matriarch, and she died forgetting. I desired to know so badly the stories that were never told because I was too young. I desired to find something, anything about my history, my ancestry, and where I come from. These questions have never been answered and may never be. The saddening goal of racism during the transatlantic slave trade succeeded — they wiped away the memory of my ancestors past, and in doing so they destroyed a part of my future.

To brand is to fluidly express the self, and make note that the body, the mind, and one’s spirit is individually separate and distinct from the masses.

So how do I brand myself?

I have often asked myself this question. There are easy answers such as be creative with selfies, take abstract, structural, and textured photos with the camera phone, criti-tweet(critical tweet) about pop culture and sociological theory, but when I dove deeper into the concept we denote as branding, I noticed that all of these schemes, ploys, and strategies at bringing the eyes of the masses toward me did not bring me joy, and at the very least sustained a minimum amount of attention.

My brand resides in my past

Quickly, I realized that my brand resides in my past, and with so few resources to know that past I have to start from shared pain and oppression that on the one hand is needed, but on the other hand does not aide in the reconciliation between my ancestry, present, and future. My desire is to not simply know the pain and inequalities of slavery, Jim crow, and the Civil Rights Movement, but to know of the royalty, spirituality, and philosophy of a past that has been so easily forgotten. Within that past, within the whispers of my ancestors, resides the starting point of my brand, and I cannot truly create myself without knowing the roots which fed me.

See, a brand is an amalgamation of all that makes us “unique.” We take from our childhood, our parents, their parents, friends, etc. For example, you discover your German ancestry, you explore deeper, forge a connection with these roots which go on to, in part, inspire your brand. Note: it does not have to, but one will find that in forging the connection with the past we architect part of our present and future by determining what areas to include or limit from that past; from those roots. But, what can I do? I cannot rely on my past as it is limited. I cannot share the spirituality of my ancestors. I can only blindly guess that my roots are tightly woven in Voodoun culture or the power of the Orishas — but I cannot easily authenticate.

Side note: I remember one evening in college I received a phone call from my mother. She was worried about something or another (insert southern accent). She praised the heavens, exclaimed that God would come through for her, and that we, as the black youth in America need to “get back to God.” I was not surprised that she would say such a thing. In her time Christianity meant liberation, regardless of whether one views it as myth or truth, Judeo-Christian thought and religion equated to a type of Black Liberation. The bible was used as a tool to oppress, then re-adopted as a tool to teach, then re-established as a tool to liberate, maintain faith, and syncretize with an increasingly diminishing African spirituality.

I stood there silently. My mind moving from one hypothetical to the next on how to approach her words. I quickly reminded her that our ancestors were not exclusively Christians, and that for all we know our Ancestors may have been Islamic, and prior to that worshipped deities of nature. Her response: “Ohh that’s right — well anyway Jesus will make a way;”

Slavery was a success.

So What is my Brand?

My brand is wondering if you fear me walking down the street. My brand swims in the murky waters of self-doubt, self-loathing, and a crisis of invisibility. My brand is believing that I must attain greatness; that I must be above and better than those who cannot share in the pain of my dehumanized roots. My brand is shackled by the psychological distress of whiteness, the symbols of what blackness is, and the ongoing fight to dispel the myths, denigrations, and assumptions of my black skin. Because, although my brand could be the critical thinker, the race philosopher, or the budding sociological inquirer, I must conquer and overcome the symbols my skin is plagued by each day. To swim through the mud, engulfed by darkness, until I find that small glimmer of light where I, Edgar, Us are out of the existential bondage with which we are born.