Chenjerai Kumanyika - Do Over

 

So, I was at this family barbecue earlier this summer. I don't know if y’all go to Black family barbecue. Frankie Beverly Maze is playing. I was eating a second plate of mac and cheese. I promised myself I wouldn't eat. [audience laughter] I was doing some card tricks for my seven-year-old nephew, Jonathan. After a couple tricks, Jonathan looks up at me and goes, “How did you do it? How did it work?” And I was like, “Ah, you know, It's magic.” He got excited. He's like, “Ooh, magic.” He kept asking me. I'm doing more tricks, he kept asking me. 

 

And then, for some reason, I started to think, well, maybe he's asking me something bigger than the card trick. I was projecting. I mean, you know. [audience laughter] And so, for some reason, I went way too dark on this. [audience laughter] I started to go, “Hmm, this kid's got to know. This is the time for this seven-year-old kid to understand, like, this is a trick.” So, I called him, I was like, “Yo, come here.” I showed him how the trick worked and then I was like, “Look, man, this is a trick, man. But you got to deal with reality.” [audience laughter] 

 

You just saw, like his seven-year-old face just drop and I knew that I had failed as an adult human. [audience laughter] I told him that there was no magic. It's funny that I would be the one to deliver that, because my own relationship to this question is much more complicated. You see, when I was about 13, my aunt went to go live in Senegal. She invited me to come stay with her for a month or so over the summer. 

 

Now, like a lot of African-Americans, I don't really know exactly where my ancestry is from, but I'd never been out of the country. So, it was so exciting to go to Africa. When I landed in Dakar, it was like everything was new. I'm talking about like just to go get some bread from the store was like an adventure. It's like, you can see everything, new buildings, new languages and smells. 

 

My aunt was going to be really busy while I was there, so she hired a guy to look out for me. And his name was Ron. He's about 30 years old. He was a chaperone. So, during the time I was there, Ron was like my big brother. He told me about his life. Not just in Dakar, just as an older man. I told him about my life, because things were starting to change a little bit. I was coming to terms with what it meant to be a guy in this black male body that looked tough, but I had the heart of a podcaster, like a Lord of the Rings fan [audience laughter] or something. 

 

I was trying to also figure out how I would make decisions. Could I trust myself? I mean, my parents had done a pretty good job of sheltering me from the ugliest parts of life, but I was living in Baltimore in the 1980s, and it felt like the danger could walk right up to your door. I told Ron about the time I was just playing tag with my friends, and the police had followed us home and questioned my mother. I told him a lot of my friends knew drug dealers, and had seen people killed and some even had guns. Ron was horrified. This wasn't the America that he knew about. He wanted to get some protection for me. 

 

So, Ron knew of this elder who was skilled in making certain special talismans that could actually protect you from guns and knives. He’s like, “People in Senegal have these things,” and he wanted to get one for his African-American little brother to protect me from the violence of America. 

 

So, the next morning, we found ourselves on a bus going out to the outskirts of Dakar. We got off the bus and walked into this small white house. When I walked in, I met this elder. I was instructed to go into the bathroom by myself, take a bath. I put on this robe. When I came out, they handed me this white towel, and it was filled with this little black powder. Ron and I took that towel to a local tailor and had it sewn into animal skin belt. I remember when it was done, just holding it in my hands, feeling its power, like, yeah, now I'm going to be protected. 

 

But then, Ron told me there was a catch. He goes, “In order for this belt to work, you have to believe in it. And in order for you to believe in it, we got to go back to the heel, to the elder, you got to put the belt on and then I'm going to have to shoot you.” [audience laughter] “What? Ron?” “Little brother, no, I wouldn't put you in harm's way.” Look, I know what you're thinking, like, this is supposed to be a real easy decision for me. I mean, I wasn't the most street savvy kid, but I did know rule number one, don't let people shoot you, [audience laughter] even if they ask nicely. 

 

But I wanted that belt to work too. Can you imagine going back as a kid to Baltimore with this belt, that was like some Marvel comic type stuff. I was like, wanted that to work. And then, also, why was Ron doing this? Like, Ron knew my aunt. There must have been-- What was going on? I didn't understand. I thought about it over and over and I was like-- I just pictured myself looking down the barrel of a gun while Ron shot and I was like, “Hell, no, I can't do that. [audience laughter] Can't do it.” I told Ron he was disappointed, and we went back to Dakar. 

 

At this point, I made an executive decision not to tell my aunt that the chaperone she had hired just asked if he could shoot me. [audience laughter] I did want to know what my aunt thought, because my aunt was like a real no nonsense person. So, I was like, “Surely, she'll validate my responsible choice here.” So, I asked her, “Hey, auntie, what do you think about talismans or those kind?” She said, “Well, actually, I think they work, but only if you believe in them.” [audience laughter] So, I was like, “Man.” 

 

After the summer was over, I went back to Baltimore. I kept this belt. For some reason, I held onto it even as I got older, moving from house to house. Sometimes I would put it on, look in the mirror and I would just wonder if it works. It was really frustrating, because I felt like I had just missed this chance to know, should I have trusted Ron? Should I have trusted myself? I would never know. 

 

A couple years later, my aunt went back to Africa, this time to Ghana to live for a couple years. And once again, she invited me to come stay with her. This time, we were in Ghana, and I spent a lot of time with a friend of mine named Kwabena. Ghana is a very religious place, but Kwabena could never quite figure out what my religion was. All he knew was I had long dreadlocks and I didn't eat meat. So, he just decided I was a Rasta. “A pure Rasta.” That's what he used to call me. He would yell at anybody tried to give meat, “He's a pure Rasta. Leave him alone.” [audience laughter] 

 

Kwabena and I got closer. I wanted Kwabena to know that wasn't really the whole story. So, I told him, I said, “Kwabena, I respect the Rastafarian tradition. I really do, but I'm not a Rasta.” And he was like, “Well, what are you? Are you a Christian?” He was a Muslim, so he was like, “Are you a Muslim like me?” I was like, “No.” He said, “What is it?” I said, “Well, I respect traditional African religions, because I feel like that's what was taken away from us.” When I said that, Kwabena's eyes got real big. He was like, “Oh, you practiced the traditional religion.” He said, “Well, my family practices this religion too. I want to take you to my village and show you how it really goes down.” 

 

So, once again, I found myself on a bus [audience laughter] early in the morning, headed to the outskirts of a West African town. And this time on the bus, Kwabena’s telling me, he’s like, “Man, our family's ways are a whole system. It's not just tricks, but there are some things that to your eyes are going to seem like magic.” We got off the bus. It was early in the morning, it was dark. He said, his grandfather had been the keeper of the family secrets, but his grandfather had passed the secrets down when he died to a young priest, and that was who we had to find. 

 

But after walking from house to house and knocking on doors, we quickly learned that this isn't the kind of person that you find. He has to find you. And at 11 o’clock at night, we're in a bar, pretty much having given up and he found us. He walked in. He had an assistant with him. And at that point, I was disappointed, but I was also relaxed, because I hadn't known what was going to happen. But then, he walks in and I was like, “Oh, shit. Oh, shit.” He comes in and he goes, “Look, I knew you were here the whole time.” He told Kwabena, he had to verify that he was really family and he verified that. He said, “I heard about you too. I did some divination. I have something I want to show both of you.” 

 

Then we walked out of the bar. As we walked down this long dirt road, because now it's night, it's dark, and his assistant stops at this little vendor and buys a machete. I was like, “Oh, that's interesting.” [audience laughter] We walked a little further and we stop outside of this shed. They explain that we're going to go in that shed and there's going to be an initiation, and that initiation is going to involve the machete. 

 

Then his assistant starts sharpening that machete. I don't know about y’all, but something about that metal scraping on metal like that just brings everything into focus. And I started thinking, I was like, “Okay.” He goes in the shed. I'm like, “Huh.” On one hand, I'm like, “Man, I could die out here.” But I also had spent all these years just wondering about the belt and I was like, “I'm here again.” So, I was like, “I'm going to go into shit.” 

 

I can't tell you everything that happened inside the shed, but I'm going to tell you a couple things that went down. First, there were some prayers made in the shed. Second, there was a point where I was given a word by the young priest. He told me that when I was ready, I should say the word and then he was going to take that cold, sharp blade of the machete and press it against my chest. And then, he would take a piece of wood and bang the machete really hard into my chest. And that if I said the word, it wouldn't cut. And then he asked me if I was ready. 

 

I took a deep breath, then I said, “I'm ready” and I said the word. He put the machete, pressed it, I felt it going into my skin, the sharp blade. He pulled back, seemed like in slow motion. Bang, knocked it into my chest. Bang, he knocked it on the other side of my chest. Bang, he knocked it on my arm. Bang, on the other arm. I looked at my arms, looked at my chest and there were no cuts. So, I made it out of that shed alive. 

 

When I reflect back on that night, I don't feel like I'll ever fully understand totally what happened, especially because I'm a person who really believes in science, like I believe in climate change, all epidemic, like everything, disease. I really believe in that, but I had this experience that I can't explain. I also want a do over for what I told my nephew that day. He's not here right now, but I want to pretend y’all are Jonathan and here's what I would tell him if I had to talk to him right now. I would say, “Jonathan, listen, a lot of decisions you're going to have to make in life, the safe route is the best route to go. But there are going to be those moments when you got to take that leap of faith, because there is magic. When the time is right, it'll find you.” Thank you very much.