Free Black Kids Need Tom Foolery

“This System, we were raised to follow, was NEVER designed for our benefit, but for our control.”

I put the chicken in the oven and turn around

Luna has three stickers on her head.

Me — When did these stickers happen?

Luna — Razi put them on me

Razi was 11 months old. He can’t even walk yet.

I get down on the floor and cradle his face.

Me — Bud, did you put those stickers on Luna’s forhead?

He nods “YES” with his big baby faced grin.

Luna — I let him

Me — Well where’s the rest?

Luna looks at me with raised eyebrows.

Me — Where’s the other hundred stickers?

Luna — (realizing) Oh my God, we can put on more?

Me — Hell yes, you barely covered any area!

They both cheer and proceed to cover their entire bodies with every sticker in the house. When we run out of rainbows, Tweety Bird and hearts we break into the Trader Joe’s stickers we get once a month.

Stickers EVERYWHERE

When Keith comes home, he takes one look and shakes his head with a smile.

Keith — Y’all something else

Me — It’s afternoon fun

The next day Keith says he’s at work when a coworker points out he has tweety bird stickers all across his belt. They all laugh. I imagine Keith having a mixture of pride and slight embarrassment.

Dad — My kids like to “get me”

So do I . Ms. Hollie Harper is completely complicit in this mission.

Because Tomfoolery is EVERYTHING. And we need to always have it for our children.

That previous night with the stickers, the kids kept them on all through dinner and made a big deal every time one fell off

Luna — OH NO!!!! Number 56 and 57 fell to the FLOOR

Me — GOODBYE 56 AND 57! WE’LL MISS YOU!!

I’m a little extra with it.

Since the beginning of the summer, the kids and I have been holding 90 full minute sessions of no devices or TV after they get home from day-camp .

I call it the “Tomfoolery Hour”.

I wanna see a skit, a silly cartoon, a new magna tile and subway city, an insane doll fort or stuffed animal brigade.

I wanna see them build something silly from NOTHING

I believe this is necessary to their sense of joy and agency. Because there’s nothing more valuable than the ability to go beyond the first ten doors of your brain.

There’s gold down that hallway.

GOLD

Last summer, one of the funniest days we shared was when Luna and Razi pretended to be peasants in the village of Old Brooklyn.

(Hence the green towels above)

Each peasant approaches me, begging for shelter in my little office area. I give shelter to only the most pathetic

Luna is first.

Luna — Kind lady, do you have shelter to spare?

Me — NO! BEG!

Razi jumps up.

Razi — I can beg!!!!!

Me — Let’s see it

Razi throws himself on the floor.

Razi — Mama PLEASE!!!!

Me — There is no MAMA here!! Just the Lady Harper with the shelter you need. BEG! Both of you!

They both giggle, grovel, beg and throw in fake Hollywood Les Miz-like vernacular that’s quite impressive.

They’re shocked when I don’t let them in. Their eyes grow wide as saucers and I wonder what their next move will be.

They disappear to the hallway for a moment and come back. Razi is now on Luna’s back. Luna walks with a limp and Razi moans in pain.

Razi — HEEEEEELLLLLLPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!

They get shelter. They earned it.

Then they stay in my little office area for the next half hour, setting up house in a fake-peasant shanty they called The Sage-El Shack.

I know…I like to push them.

I’m kind of the opposite of a Tiger Mom. I’m a “Yes to Effery Mom” because Effery is valuable to your soul.

I like to insert joy in negative every day spaces.

Like…If you stand in an empty subway station and wonder what it feels like to run to the wall and back….. why not try it?

If you want to make mid-scale art out of blue painters tape and attach it to your wall, what’s stopping you?

I allow them to have fake names, write down their special superhero skills and concoct costumes on the regular.

I boo when they half-ass it and tell them to get their commitment game together.

• Luna and Razi walk up to me and tell me they’re doctors and I need surgery

Me — What kind of surgery?

Razi — I don’t know, we’re just doctors

Me — I hardly believe you guys are doctors. Go Google some types of surgeries

And they do. They give me a fake heart transplant. They replace it with a jar of Skippy peanut butter

Two summers ago Luna and I were walking to her day camp on the Lower East Side when the fattest pigeon in North America landed in front of us with no spacial awareness

Luna — Mama… he’s really gonna walk like we’re not here

Me — Chubby Uncle Pigeon

We both laughed.

Then Luna put on a voice like she was him. It sounded like an crabby, old . man

Luna — (crabby man voice) Oh excuse ME ladies, I’m SOOOOOOO SORRY you have to walk behind a chubby pigeon

Me — (playing along in crabby vboice) It must be SOOOOOO horrible to walk behind a rat with wings

Luna — (in crabby old man voice) Are you DISTURBED BY ME?!! Are you gonna need THERAPY for this?!!!!

I died laughing.

Now whenever we see a fat-ass pigeon with no self awareness, Luna and I bust out with “I’m SOOOOO SORRY!” and crack up together.

Now Razi…he is my builder.

Watching him create whole neighborhoods with his Magna tiles and subway trains is something to witness.

His obsession with subway trains has morphed into a collection of 3 dozen small subway cars, yards of wooden tracks, several platforms, safety signs and a small team of miniature lego people.

This is along with all his magna tiles that create the buildings around them.

Keith fostered most of this.

Keith — Bud, build the city YOU want to see

So far he has blessed us with new neighborhoods near Clinton Hill, Harlem and Midtown but my favorite is Flexington Ave.

Me — FLEX-ington Avenue?

Bud — I made Lexington Avenue better.

And he did. He made a neighborhood with multiple entrances to an expanded subway stop, complete with ramps and elevators from all sides.

Bud — It’s just better

We all nod in agreement.

Flexington Avenue

Tomfoolery is especially important to me in raising Black children because I heard something 10 years back that made me cringe.

I was in a doctors office and a mom with her 2 little boys was having a hard time getting them to sit still in the boring waiting area.

The boys played a game where they circled the coffee table full of magazines and picked up one each time they went around. They giggled harder and harder until mom said something that stopped me cold.

Mom — Y’all stop embarrassing me in front of all these white folks!

I’d heard that a million times. NOT from my parents. But I’d heard it so many times I can’t even tell you when it started.

“Embarrassing me in front of white folks” …..makes me wanna throw up.

Because WHY would we be auditioning for white folks?

Seriously, what for?

Approval?

Acceptance?

Seriously Fuck that.

We are we a race of people that has seen the WORST behavior from white folks…. yet we’d hold them up as a template of civility???

I want ALL children to be free, act free and live free but I’m addressing this “In Front Of White folks” thinking and I’m very serious about it.

We Black folk are not “less than”…so we NEVER, ever, ever have to audition for the approval of ANYONE.

No one. ZILCH. No freaking body.

We are beautiful, amazing and excellent on our goddamned own.

Now…… do SOME people need to learn how to ACT?

Yes, but that’s universal. That’s just the lack of basic home-training. Something I’ve seen Black families hold down for generations.

Terms like “Home-training” and “In Front of Company” are very familiar to us.

Our American history is so full of us being maligned with stereotypes that we’ve become obsessed with showing our good side….to the people that maligned us.

That is one branch of White Supremacy we must resist. That thinking.

And it gets passed down through direct and indirect messages

• Last year, I’m in Duane Reade waiting for a prescription on a Saturday afternoon

I spot two or three other people with kids. We’re the only Black family.

Kids are kids. So all the kids are doing that “bored kid in an adult environment” Thing where they make fun from what’s around them.

Luna and Razi join a few white kids by the reading glass tree display. They all take glasses off the tree, try them on and look in the mirror.

The older Black security guard watches and shakes his head.

Soon Luna and Razi walk up and down the heartburn/diarrhea medicine aisle, picking up different boxes and read them to each other.

Security Guard — Hey, y’all not supposed to be touching that

Me — Sir, its OK. They’re learning about different medicines. They won’t damage anything

Security Guard — But they could knock the display over

Me — They won’t. I promise

I’m annoyed because there’s nothing in here that’s that serious. Not the display, not the eyeglass tree..nothing.

This is all while the little white kids roam up and down the aisle, ACTUALLY knocking down a few things….like children do.

I’m annoyed but I get it.

WE police each other’s kids in this village. “We” meaning Black folk. The guard was looking out for us like fellow villagers.

But…… sometimes I’m not on the page you’re on.

Sometimes I want my kids to be free like other kids. I want them to look, touch, explore. I WANT them to have the sense of entitlement I’ve seen white kids raised with.

I want the sense of entitlement that drives them to ask strangers who they are and “What’s this?”, and “What’s that made of?” and “Can I see it?” and “Can you put this on hold for me?” and “I’m sure you can help me out with this”.

THAT kind of thinking says “I belong here”.

ENTITLEMENT

I don’t want my kids to concern themselves with behaving in front of white folks. I want them to see white people like they are any other people.

I want them to move through the world with the confidence of OWNERSHIP that this is their country…because their ancestors built it.

They inhabit it.

Their parents pay taxes on it.

They fought for it.

Died on foreign and domestic soil for it.

They vote in it.

Shop in it.

Live in it.

Love in it.

And everywhere they step they belong. They have no “Place”….. Their place is wherever they see their face.

Because you can’t be free if you feel like you’re a guest in someone else’s home.

You never really put your feet up…or Stretch out… or change things.

Because…duh, ownership

The repetition of Tomfoolery, that spirt that says “I belong wherever my soul takes me”, nurtures a need and good greed to explore…to go PAST where you were before.

You must be Free in order to find what you NEVER even knew was out there. Whether its a Flexington Ave or a way of political thinking.

Black folks need to continue to stretch out. Our kids need to be Free.

Don’t worry about dirt, that’s what soap is for.

Looking silly?….yeah, and?

People are staring?….uh huh, we look good

What about the rules?…Um…whose rules?

This System, we were raised to follow, was NEVER designed for our benefit, but for our control.

“Out of this World” lives are lead by “Out The Box” people.

That were once children

So Tomfoolery is a Requirement

Every. Damn. Day… in this Home we built

Called America

#TheSystem

#YesIAMThatMom