Walking while black - Read this and weep -long but well worth it

[malaise]

http://lithub.com/walking-while-black/
<snip>
Walking as a black man has made me feel simultaneously more removed from the city, in my awareness that I am perceived as suspect, and more closely connected to it, in the full attentiveness demanded by my vigilance. It has made me walk more purposefully in the city, becoming part of its flow, rather than observing, standing apart.

* * * *

But it also means that I’m still trying to arrive in a city that isn’t quite mine. One definition of home is that it’s somewhere we can most be ourselves. And when are we more ourselves but when walking, that natural state in which we repeat one of the first actions we learned? Walking—the simple, monotonous act of placing one foot before the other to prevent falling—turns out not to be so simple if you’re black. Walking alone has been anything but monotonous for me; monotony is a luxury.

A foot leaves, a foot lands, and our longing gives it momentum from rest to rest. We long to look, to think, to talk, to get away. But more than anything else, we long to be free. We want the freedom and pleasure of walking without fear—without others’ fear—wherever we choose. I’ve lived in New York City for almost a decade and have not stopped walking its fascinating streets. And I have not stopped longing to find the solace that I found as a kid on the streets of Kingston. Much as coming to know New York City’s streets has made it closer to home to me, the city also withholds itself from me via those very streets. I walk them, alternately invisible and too prominent. So I walk caught between memory and forgetting, between memory and forgiveness.

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It is why we live in the Caribbean (with all our problems)

[Skittles]

1. this is an excellent read

yes indeed

[malaise]

3. Beautiful written but

oh so painful.
Made me think of what they did to tennis player James Blake who just happened to be outside his hotel while black

[Skittles]

6. a coworker told me about hearing car doors lock when he was at a crosswalk

he's the most gentle man I know

[malaise]

7. Obama mentioned that

This planet is sick

[mia]

2. Thanks for posting this.

Prize winning essay, in my mind. Reading this changed me in a way that I haven't felt for a long time. Good literature has always done that for me.

[malaise]

5. He was interviewed on Canadian radio today

He writes beautifully

[mia]

8. Our Democratic Public Space

I would enjoy listening to the Canadian radio interview.

Here's a video about his work in New York City.

https://vimeo.com/156755679

Garnette Cadogan writes on history, culture, and the arts, among other subjects. His work explores the dynamics of cultural change, particularly in urban settings. He is editor-at-large for Unstoppable Metropolis: A New York City Atlas (forthcoming) and is co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of the Harlem Renaissance (forthcoming). His current research interests are the promise and perils of metropolitan life, the relationship between commerce and creativity, and the phenomenology of walking. He has received fellowships for research from Yale University, the University of Chicago, and New York University, where he is a Visiting Scholar at the Institute of Public Knowledge. At the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, Cadogan will be writing a book on walking and working closely with the Thriving Cities Project. Jonathan Tarleton is a writer, activist, and urbanist and Senior Editor at Urban Omnibus and the Architectural League of New York.

[malaise]

9. Thanks

Here's a Canadian media link - you might find a podcast - not sure

http://www.publicradiofan.com/cgibin/station.pl?stationid=13

[mia]

10. Canadian media podcast

Found it. Thanks for the lead.

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thesundayedition/black-in-america-gay-dads-make-history-stop-the-noise-1.3669447/walking-while-black-1.3672432

[malaise]

11. Great

[ismnotwasm]

4. K&R

[BumRushDaShow]

12. "It is why we live in the Caribbean"

As a side note when I saw your remark, I immediately thought of Randall Robinson, who many know as an untiring activist who pounded and pounded on subjects related to the diaspora (via his well known organization TransAfrica). Yet even he got so disgusted, frustrated, and burned out, that he made a conscious decision to go into "voluntary exile" in St. Kitt's 15 years ago (where his wife's family lives). As a note to those not familiar with him, he is also the brother of former (deceased) ABC anchor Max Robinson.

He returned to the U.S. occasionally since then, to give lectures and interviews, and I remember seeing him on one (from CSPAN's Booknotes) related to his book "Quitting America: The Departure of a Black Man from His Native Land" (2004).

http://www.c-span.org/video/?182565-1/book-discussion-quitting-america

The latest interview that he had for CSPAN was this -

http://www.c-span.org/video/?310247-1/depth-randall-robinson

[Surya Gayatri]

13. Riveting narrative...and this is "liberal" NY. What must it be like in red towns and cities?