Waiting to Exhale: Challenges in Forging a Black Identity by Charlotte Seay

Fireman: Ma'am, were you aware that your car was on fire?

[Bernadine nods her head while smoking a cigarette]

Fireman: Ma'am, did you start this fire?

[she puffs smoke and plainly looks at him]

Fireman: You know, it's against the law to burn anything except trash in your yard.

Bernadine Harris: [flicks off ashes from her cigarette] It is trash.

Fireman: Look, this is a nice area. Luckily, a neighbor cared enough. Listen, the next time you want to burn something...

Bernadine Harris: It won't happen again.

[she shuts the door in his face]

One can only dare to be such a badass like this character. A noble African American woman named Terry McMillian wrote a novel titled Waiting to Exhale which was adapted into a two-hour dramatic film in 1995. It is a story about four African American females struggling with romantic relationships, causing them to lose their sense of identity in the process. The scene above is about Bernadine Harris burning her soon-to-be ex-husband’s car with his clothes inside because he was leaving her for another woman. This scene displays two things: destruction and cleansing. Although one should never deface someone’s property, sometimes one must break down and dismantle themselves in order to be reborn.  In the end, one can emotionally rehabilitate oneself and begin to create a new canvas and embrace the person one is meant to be. Personally, I have not had romantic relationship problems that have hindered my growth as a person. However, just like those four women, I have allowed the people in my life to define who I am and how I behaved. Worse, in acting the way I wanted to, it always felt like an act. When I attended church, I had to be very proper and modest in my behavior and appearance, yet the next day at school, I would be cursing and wearing crop tops and a fake septum ring. My personality just did not seem to fit into any one place. I divided myself into the multiple dimensions of my life, each one requiring a different characteristic for be to embody. I have been waiting for a chance to exhale and be satisfied with the person I am.

The first time someone called me an “Oreo” was in middle school in the seventh grade. Just like the cookie, being an Oreo is when one is black on the outside but acts white or behave in ways that are not associated with the African American community member stereotype. On a good day, this need to be properly black and properly American would not affect me so much. But being told by a girl who was lighter than me that I am not black enough to be black caused me to feel rejected by a whole community. I suppose I did not act black enough to have a lot of black friends or act white enough to have any white friends. I was in sort of a limbo state. I had friends, but I never felt like I belonged anywhere which made me feel insecure in the way I spoke. Over the phone, one of my aunts---that is, someone who shared my DNA---told me I sounded like a little white girl: “so proper.” I knew she did not mean any harm, but that comment felt so ignorant. I wanted to throw those words in a car and watch the whole thing burn. Can I not be a proper black girl?

Gloria Anzalduá was ridiculed for the way she spoke while she was in the United States. When she went to attend “Pan American University, [she] and all Chicano students were required to take two speech classes. Their purpose: to get rid of [their] accents” (Anzalduá, 8). Both Anzalduá and I had people in our lives telling us who we should be and who we already are. I strongly believe that the way one speaks and writes is strongly connected to one’s identity. Consequently, I have gotten bolder over the years which has changed the way I act around people in certain situations. My boldness gradually showed in my writing, and I had to learn how to cohere my thoughts concisely. Yet something in my head told me to hold my tongue and my breath as I slowly faded into the background.

Like school, like theater: an ensemble member does not have a significant role. They are just there to fill up some of the space on stage in the background. I was an ensemble member in my own life. It is funny because that carried over to high school when I became an ensemble member in musicals and plays. I never drank, smoked, or had sex during middle school or high school. It seemed like all my friends were partying and getting boyfriends and I was just there alone. I began entertaining myself with the thought of becoming promiscuous. This idea was a mixture of many things: I wanted to experience being with a guy myself, and I wanted an escape from my “goodie-two-shoes” life. Although I never actually put any effort into being promiscuous, it always lingered in the back of my mind. I incorrectly associated promiscuity with freedom because I believe that if one can do whatever one wants with one’s body and with whomever, one is free. One is doing those physical actions on one’s own time which I had never done before. I also felt that if I became this kind of girl, I would be free mentally. I was born into the Christian faith, but I never saw Christianity fitting into my life as I got older. In the Bible it clearly states, "Nevertheless, [to avoid] fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband” (1 Corinthians, 7:2). Christianity promotes sex after marriage, not before. Just like Plato’s cave allegory, Christianity was my cave. I did not live or explore outside of that reality. My mother made me go to church every Sunday, even when I told her that I did not want to go anymore. She yelled at me and made me go. I wanted to rebel and go against my mother’s wishes.

As time went by, I stumbled across a book in high school titled Loose Girl by Kerry Cohen at a local thrift store. It is a memoir about her journey of promiscuity. At the back of the book, I read an interview with Mrs. Cohen:

Q: Why did you write this book?

A: My own saving began when I saw myself in the pages of my book, so my hope is that girls and women will find themselves in Loose Girl. 

I found many flaws in myself that Mrs. Cohen had as well at my age. I am glad she wrote her memoir because it put my thoughts and potential actions of being “loose” to rest. It made me realize that it is not necessary to be a loose girl in life. It would have not made me live any more of a great life then I already had. I understood the depths and consequences of actions that I was considering. This life lesson goes along perfectly with Walt Whitman’s long prose poem, “Song of Myself.” He wrote: “Trippers and askers surround me, / People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life... / My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues… / These come to me days and nights and go from me again, / But they are not the Me myself.” (Section 4). Everyone plays a part in one’s development, which Whitman eloquently phrases in his work. It is the small things like the dues one must pay to form our identity. Perhaps it is the way one feels when dressed: am I being controlled or freed by clothes? What really defines one’s character? For me, it was the people in my life early on who influenced me, especially the people who I went to church with. All the compliments they gave me made feel obligated to attend service after a while because they were so kind and old. Whitman made me realize that these things that have surrounded me since the day I was born made me the person that I am today. The effects of these influences were inevitable. Identity is inevitable. However, in life we get to choose whether we want those influences to impact our identity, as Whitman noted. I knew I did not want to be the person who I was at church because I was just going through the motions and not living the way I truly believed life to be. I agree with Whitman’s ending line: “Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders / I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait” (Section 4). Now that I have grown and am away from that either/or middle school environment, I can breathe a little more. 

In high school things got better. During my senior year, I decided to take a creative writing class. My English teacher encouraged me to do so. He saw a potential voice in me. I am not going to say that I emerged as a great writer, but I became more articulate, more confident, more essential. He did not just let me sit in class and stay silent. At the end of the semester, we had to present our final project. It was an opportunity to get to know what everyone was thinking about and how they chose to express themselves. I decided to write a book of poems. Due to “senior-itis” (a wave of terrible procrastination and lack of motivation among students during their senior year of high school), a lot of my poems were weak. I did not commit on any one idea to really be as successful as I could have on this project. I did not fail, but I was not proud of what I produced. After this project, I learned something very important: I am afraid of being ordinary and it showed in all my writing. I tried to sound smarter than what my own knowledge could provide all because I had not discovered my authentic self, what Whitman calls "the Me myself." 

Subway Art by the author

One cannot teach oneself authenticity. I looked up to so many recording artists who exhibit this quality in their character. Since I did not know who I was, I naturally wanted to emulate those who I want to be. I am still guilty of still doing this today, but not as extremely as before. I am now more inspired by their courage rather in trying to be like them. I found great relief in Alan Watts’ concept on what being an individual means by calling all beings hoaxes. “The word ‘Individual’ is the Latin form of the Greek ‘atom’—that which cannot be cut or divided any further into separate parts. We cannot chop off a person's head or remove his heart without killing him. But we can kill him just as effectively by separating him from his proper environment” (Watts, 9). This notion of intrinsic wholeness goes back to my theory of one having to destroy oneself to find oneself. Many people, including me, have thought that entering into college is yet another journey of self-discovery. To become the person that I want to be, I could not stay at home.

Everyone’s life has different scenes, just like a movie. There is an opening and closing line. I have stepped up from behind the scenes and taken more control of my life. I have begun to Gestalt my life by living as a whole human being rather than choosing pieces of my life to live. An individual is one atom, one organism. I have lived a life where I thought I did not belong. In reality, “[I] have been fooled by [my] name…[believing] that having a separate name makes [me] a separate being” (Watts, 11). Instead everyone is connected. Once one realizes that one is neither more ordinary nor extraordinary than the other, one can live the way one pleases. I have begun to realize this which has allowed me to finally breath in and exhale.

Works Cited

Anzalduá, Gloria. "How to Tame a Wild Tongue." (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 01 Dec. 2016.

The Bible: King James Version. Glasgow: Collins, 2008. Print. 01 Dec. 2016.

Cohen, Kerry. Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity. New York: Hyperion, 2009. Print. 01 Dec. 2016

"Go to Bing Homepage." Plato+allegory+of+the+cave+cartoon - Bing Video. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Dec. 2016.

Watts, Alan. The Book: On the Taboo against Knowing Who You Are (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 01 Dec. 2016

Whitman, Walt. “Song of Myself” N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Dec. 2016

Whitaker, Forest, director. Waiting to Exhale. Prod. Terry McMillan and Ronald Bass. Perf. Whitney Houston, Angela Bassett, and Loretta Devine. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, 1995.

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Apathy, Atheism, and The Last Call by Dushyant Rakheja

I spoiled God’s divine plan at the age of 17. My mother was shouting at me to not throw a bucket of water at my sleeping brother, yet I did. As expected, she was as enraged as was my brother, but he’s not important for now. My mother, or rather her beliefs as a Hindu, however, are. According to Hinduism, God has a divine plan for the world and everything that happens in a human’s life happens for a reason that only They know. Hence, it is often preached that one should not give into rage because all bad things are Their plan. If one reads again closely, they will find that I was able to aggravate a firm believer of this notion. I had her, just for a moment, “step away from God” and commit a sin. That possibly wasn’t part of his plan. I beat God…or did I?

Later that year angering my mother became a second habit, and questioning Their existence became the first. That was because I had concluded at this point that there was no divine plan that we followed. Call me skeptical but I fail to understand why the plan called for people to die at the hands of others for money. If there was a God, would he make a plan that could lead to this? Though I did know the answer already I wanted confirmation, which I found in Alan Watts’s The Book: On the Taboo against Knowing Who You Are. He confirmed my suspicion in the very first chapter by saying:

God also likes to play hide-and-seek, but because there is nothing outside God, he has no one but himself to play with. But he gets over this difficulty by pretending that he is not himself. This is his way of hiding from himself. He pretends that he is you and I and all the people in the world, all the animals, all the plants, all the rocks, and all the stars. (Watts)

Hindu philosophy states that we are born of God and we are one with Him. Watts seconds this notion by stating “there is nothing outside God.” Ergo, inhabitants of the earth, we all collectively are God! He is more you and more I than he is in Himself. The fog dissipated at last, giving way to why the divine plan led us to an era where the majority is not happy to be alive.

“… Sometimes the reason is you're stupid and make bad decisions.” (Harmon)

Being the Devil’s advocate, or maybe the God’s advocate, I started questioning priests and learned people about whether they knew God or not. More importantly, had God given them what they asked for any more than their parents or friends did? Before the big reveal, however, it is important that one knows about Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.

Consider a bunch of prisoners who were chained up in an underground cave ever since birth. Their only sources of light are the diffused sunlight coming from the mouth of the cave and the fire burning behind them at a higher elevation than them. From in front of the fire passes a road where showman and puppeteers perform casting a shadow on the opposite wall, the only wall that prisoners can see. Since that was the only thing they saw since the beginning of their lives, the prisoners accept the shadows to be true and hence start naming and familiarizing with them. If from a bunch of these prisoners one random person was freed and shown his surroundings – the fire and the diffused sunlight – he would start questioning his conception of reality.

Furthermore, if he was led through the mouth of the cave and into the outside world, his eyes would find the sunlight too bright and it would be hard for him to adjust. But once they do, he is introduced to a whole new world that he could not have dreamt of in his wildest dreams. He is exposed to figures that have depth and color, that cast shadows. After a while of discomfort and a lot of questions, he would recognize the sun as the source of light and objects as the source of shadows. He then deciphers what we consider basic reality.

Illuminated by this new knowledge, the prisoner returns to the cave to help his fellow prisoners differentiate the true from the shadows. Before making a decision, I would like you to try and remember your reaction when you figured out your mother’s name was not “mom,” or some other variation of it, but rather something else. I, personally, did not accept the fact and it took a lot of explanation to reconcile me. Or, try telling somebody that cockroaches cannot harm them and do not need to be feared. If one can be unaccepting of such minor changes, it would come as no surprise that the prisoners did not want to believe the free man. Since his eyes were more adapted to light, he could not see the shadows of the cave properly whereas the other prisoners could. They used that fact to establish their superiority and shunned him aside like a lunatic. The prisoners in this case could be exchanged with the priests I talked in my quest for sun. 

Some debated with me back and forth and strengthened my point that God resides in all of us, and prayer is just a way of reminding oneself what’s important to them in life. Others entered a state of absolute denial or even became a little hostile with their words and called me the personification of blasphemy.

Societal pressure, however, did not stop my investigations. I had progressed to finding the meaning in every mundane aspect of life: each blink, each wink, the flutter of the bees that I now consider my equal, each breath we take. The last question popped up to me during my grandfather’s funeral. He was clinging to life with an oxygen mask as Alzheimer’s took away his ability to breathe. My uncles and father gathered around him and were showing him images of the deity he worshiped and whispered, “They are calling you. You want to go to Them, right? You can go.” Among the loud sniffles, cries, and wailing, this sentence rang loud in my mind. If one believes in living a better life after death, why do they fear it or get sad when a close one dies? 

“Has any one supposed it lucky to be born? I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die…” (Whitman)

Walt Whitman’s 52-piece series called “Song of Myself” covered most of what I would like to know about life. It is true that the way I assimilate the message may be radically different than what he intended, but it resolved my issues. From Song 1, “I celebrate myself, and sing myself…,” I learned what it truly means to live and bask in the glory of oneself while enjoying the moment. Song 6 talks about leaves of grass, affirming oneness among humans and the earth; all of us being part of the same, being born and dying to be the same. Why should I then treat anything or anybody any different than others? The grass I walk on is not less deserving of my respect than the stranger I share a smile with at the coffee shop. My reaction on my phone falling out of my pocket and breaking must not differ from when I found out it was just my tempered glass protector. Some people mistake this for my apathy, but I am merely taking things as they come, like the Chinese farmer.

The Chinese farmer, in Alan Watts’ The Story of the Chinese Farmer, as one may have guessed by now, was a statute of the Buddhist principle of impermanence with an eye to the tao (zen). When dealt with seemingly good or bad situations, the farmer stays calm and waits for them to play out on their own, much like Arjuna learns in the Bhagavad Gita, that is, non-attachment to the fruits of one's actions. Divergence of the actual outcome from our expectations is what causes our sadness and not the outcomes themselves. This happens to be an unrealistic thing to chase after, but we all hope for a miracle every day.

Through my journey of life till now, I have been transformed into an atheist who does not believe in god, but after being acquainted with Alan Watts and Plato, I believe in humans and our power to change our lives as well as others. Hence, I would rather say that I am non-theistic but still pursuing truth. I believe in questioning what I see and am told to believe without reason. Walt Whitman gave me new questions to think about and a new perspective to view things from. The Chinese farmer challenged me to not over-think too much and to take things as they come. I was resolved and challenged to break the shackles and go to the light, to stand at the edge of the cave and learn about all the new parts of me that I see and not be overwhelmed by it. I have a new rail to take my train of thought on, and this is the last call. All aboard!

Works Cited

Clay, Becky. “Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.” YouTube. 5 Jun. 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoOVFO4Qnqg&feature=share.

Dhyani, Divya. Haridwar. Jan. 2015.

Harmon, Marion G., Ronin Games, Vol. 5. USA: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015. Print. 6 vols.

Living, Raw. “Plato’s Allegory of the Cave in Cartoon!” YouTube. 4 Nov 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0GLmYm-SRw

Plato. Allegory of the Cave. Trans. Jowett, Benjamin. Los Angeles: Enhanced Media Publishing, 2017. Print.

Plato. Great Dialogues of Plato. Edited by Eric H Warmington and Philip G Rousse. Translated by W. H. D. Rouse. New York: Signet Classics, 1999. p. 316

Watts, Alan. Chapter 1 “Inside Information.” The Book On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are. Aylesbury: Hazell Watson & Viney Ltd, 1973. Xvii. PDF

Watts, Alan. “The Story of The Chinese Farmer.” YouTube. 20 Nov 2016. Web. 02 Dec. 2018.

            Whitman, Walt. Song of Myself. Dover Publications, 2001. Print.

How Identity Works: Without Pain How Can We Know Joy? by Sadie Schofield

What is good without bad? In “The Story of the Chinese Farmer” by Alan Watts there was a man who had bad and good fortune happen to him at different times. His son broke his leg which seemed to be a bad fortune, but because of this, he was not drafted into the war. His neighbors gathered around him every time a different event occurred, and they would cry out “Oh, that’s too bad” or “Wow, that’s great!” However, each time the Chinese farmer would state, “Maybe” (Watts). The Chinese farmer realized something that all these town folks did not understand. You cannot have good without bad. They are inseparable. For “your joy is your sorrow unmasked” (Gibran, [On Joy and Sorrow]). Alan Watts gives a clearer picture of this in The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are by stating:

. . . Just as the hour-hand of the watch goes up to twelve and down to six, so, too, there is day and night, waking and sleeping, living and dying, summer and winter. You can't have any one of these without the other, because you wouldn't be able to know what black is unless you had seen it side-by-side with white, or white unless side-by-side with black.

Everyone has their own experiences with black and white. One fails a test, but because of it, one wants to study harder. One gets thrown in jail; however, one learns not to make the same mistake again. One gets sexually assaulted, yet one walks away stronger with the knowledge that even though this happened, one might be able to help someone else who is going through the same thing. Whitman wrote in “Song of Myself,” section 4, “I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won” (Whitman, par. 18). I have had my own share of black and white which I had to deal with and my own identity to figure out. For me to tell what happened to me and to take ownership of the situation is going to be a hard thing, but in the end, it will help myself as well as others.

From the ages of three through sixteen, I was sexually assaulted by my grandfather. He was a man who I called Papa. I was supposed to trust him and have comfort knowing he would protect me, yet instead he betrayed me. This was something which pierced my soul and made me ashamed of who I was. I thought that it was me who did something wrong, that in some way I was the problem. Just like any other victim of a sexual assault, whether you are male or female, you know that a part of you is missing after the occurrence. There is that feeling missing from you; you know it was there, but now it is snatched away by the rapist.

Surprisingly, I never realized what was happening to me until I was sixteen. Because of my Baptist background, I was never taught what sexual assault was. My church thought it best to keep these things away from children not realizing that sexual assault could happen to anyone. The even sadder part was, when I eventually realized what was happening, my grandfather was admitted to a nursing home because he suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and forgot his past. He might have forgotten what he did, but I did not. He eventually passed away in October of 2016; I watched him take his final breath as he laid there on a hospital cot. For a long time, I felt no justice was done for his actions. Instead, I curled up in a ball of negative emotions causing 2017 to be the worst year of my life. I tried counseling for a while with no avail. One cannot be helped by a counselor if one is not willing to heed their advice. For me, at least, I had to figure out for myself who I was. Was I just a victim of a crime or was I someone who might grow from this experience?  

Someone who helped me figure out my identity was my friend Robert. He went through a similar experience of feeling rejected and used, yet somehow he looked past all of that and found the beauty in life. He realized “the deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain” (Gibran, [On Joy and Sorrow]). It was him who got me out of my mental state of collapse. Through him, I learned to “unscrew the locks from the doors and to unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs” (Whitman, par. 24). Reflecting on my grandfather’s behavior, I took refuge in these words: “Whoever degrades another degrades me and whatever is said and done at last returns to me” (Whitman, par. 24). Because of Robert’s scarred past, he looked to alternative options to relieve his pain, causing him to have a run-in with the law. He did, however, learn that he would not be making the same mistake again, but he still had to pay for the consequence of his actions. This past November he was taken away to prison for a few months, where he is now. This was another major event in my life which could have caused me to slip into depression had I not looked at it from a healthy point of view. I saw this as a way for me to put into practice everything that he helped me with. I saw it as an opportunity for growth and to show the world that even though this is my past it does not define me. I do still struggle a bit with my past sometimes and “these thoughts come to me days and nights and go from me again, but they are not the Me myself” (Whitman, par. 4). 

I took my first steps into discovering my new self as I progressed throughout my first semester of college here at Hofstra University. I was not going to let these series of sexual assaults be the thing that took me down. Instead, I decided to surround myself with people who I knew had my best interest at heart, even though this story of sexual abuse might scare them. However, this story might also help them because “no matter who you are, we all have some sort of monster hiding in our closet” (Gottwald). This was my monster and is the monster of many other people. I have to say if I had not have gone through this experience I would not be at the same state of mental compacity as I am now. In a weird, twisted way I did grow from this experience. Because of this, I unlocked what Whitman was trying to say when he stated in his Preface to Leaves of Grass:

. . . hate tyrants . . . have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men. . .  read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.

Because of experiencing rape at a young age, I have learned to be more companionate and to take more time to invest in the lives of others. I also learned to re-examine my life as well as overcome whatever insults me. My job now as a thinker and learner is to use the Jewish philosophy תיקון עולם or tikkun olam, which roughly translates, “to heal the world.” I have to repair the tear in the world by showing people that “I will no longer be made to feel ashamed of existing. . . I will overcome the tradition of silence” (Anzaldua, par. 40). We are given tongues to be able to speak the truth and to stand up for what is right. We should not feel like we have to hide our past or be too afraid to speak up when we are being abused. Gloria Anzaldua suffered with using her own voice. Every time she opened up her mouth she was deemed wrong. That is why we have to untame our tongues; we need to prevent the silence. There are many women and men alike that feel the need to keep silent; they do not feel like they are going to be taken seriously. Such is the case with many college students. Sarah Baum wrote it best in her essay, “Pulling That Weight: How Colleges Can Support Survivors of Sexual Assault,” especially the story of Emma Sulkowize (uses they/them pronoun). Emma was sexually assaulted while they attended Columbia University. “They reported it [the assault] to campus authorities but it fell on deaf ears. When that failed, they reported their assault to the NYPD. Their case was ridiculed and dismissed” (Baum, par. 1) Emma is just one of many who have suffered by being dismissed. It is a scary thought that “One in five women will be assaulted on a college campus” (RAINN). Yet, when a student is a victim of sexual assault on campus, they have no ally in their school. They only face blame and shame. “They are damned before they can even be victimized” (Baum, par. 2). We need to all bond together to stop this from happening. We need to lend a listening ear to victims. We also need to help heal the world of the victims whose lives have been torn apart. We need to jump out of the cave and look toward the light (Plato).

Looking back now, a semester after I wrote this, I can truly say that my life has changed. I have been able to use my voice as a writer to help others by stepping into peoples’ lives and being the listening ear, they were yearning for. Because of this I have been able to help victims gain a voice of their own. Sexual assault is a hard battle to overcome, but when we all join together to take it down little by little the mountain turns into a mole hill.

Works Cited

Watts, Alan. The Book; on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are. New York: Pantheon, 1966.Menantol. Web. 06 Dec. 2018.

Plato, “The Allegory of the Cave,” https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=plato+allegory+of+the+cave+cartoon&view=detail&mid=C711AFC2F023B84F2320C711AFC2F023B84F2320&FORM=VIRE

Gibran, K. (2018). The Prophet by Khalil Gibran - free online ebook. [online] Wyzend.com. Available at: http://wyzend.com/prophet/ [Accessed 6 Dec. 2018].

Whitman, W. (2018). SONG OF MYSELF. (Leaves of Grass (1891-92)) - The Walt Whitman Archive. [online] Whitmanarchive.org. Available at: https://whitmanarchive.org/published/LG/1891/poems/27 [Accessed 6 Dec. 2018].

Gottwald, Benjamin. Personal Encounter. 5 Dec. 2018

Green, John. The Fault in Our Stars. 2018

Anzaldua, Gloria. (2018). [online] Everettsd.org. Available at: https://www.everettsd.org/cms/lib07/WA01920133/Centricity/Domain/965/Anzaldua-Wild-Tongue.pdf [Accessed 6 Dec. 2018].

RAINN | The Nation's Largest Anti-Sexual Violence Organization, www.rainn.org/statistics/campus-sexual-violence.

Baum, S. (2018). Pulling That Weight: How Colleges Can Support Survivors of Sexual Assault.

Watts, Alan. “Story of the Chinese Farmer.” YouTube, Wiara, 19 Nov. 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byQrdnq7_H0

AN AFTERNOON IN GOWANUS by the Frank Perowsky Jazz Orchestra: A Review by Kirpal Gordon

When Alan Watts, the self-proclaimed “scholar-entertainer” of Asian meditation philosophies, was asked what cultural institution of Western civilization most resembled the Veda-Buddha-Tao-Zen point of view, he said the symphony orchestra in which every member of the ensemble blends their individual voice/instrument into the group sound. Too bad Watts passed away before he could check An Afternoon in Gowanus by the Frank Perowsky Jazz Orchestra. Incorporating five saxes, four trombones, four trumpets and a rhythm section of bass-piano-drums, this big band of first call NYC musicians does supreme justice to Perowsky’s skillful, lively, bop-wild arrangements. His charts are full of intense athletic activity. His bandmates, many of whom have been playing with him for years, create a palatable force field of wow, a sonic atmosphere oceanic and deep, interconnected and layered, rich with improvisational opportunities, a joyful noise and a musical ride that spans galaxies. Per Watts’ eye to the relationship between Atman (the individual) and Brahman (the whole), this band achieves a collective sound which swings greater than the sum of its parts.

Recorded by Wei-Yu Hsien at ShapeShifterLabs in Brooklyn, a show I happened to catch live, the CD, thanks to Andy Taub’s mix and mastered by Roger Lian, gives a listener that you-are-there experience. It opens slyly with a quiet bluesy intro with David Berkman on piano, Aidan O’Donnel on bass and Ben Perowsky (Frank’s son and the CD’s producer) on drums. Then the entire band jumps, spirals, twists, leaps and dives headlong into Frank Perowsky's original tune, "Big Apple Circus." The madcap melody becomes a call-and-answer duet with each section of the band effortlessly switching parts. When the sections lay out, Loren Stillman solos on alto sax, smooth and sinewy, smoky and heaven-bound. Then the section players return accenting the solo and re-stating the theme. The overall effect, thanks to band’s precise pitch, is of having been launched into outer space.

On the second track, Bud Powell’s uptempo “Bouncin’ with Bud,” it’s clear the band has citizenship on other planets. From the stratosphere the trumpets announce the intro, Ben on the drum kit keeps it all together and Frank Perowsky’s unhurried tenor sax weaves and note-bends its way into a new reading of Powell’s bebop chestnut. Jacob Garchik’s trombone solo reaches to the skies and the band encourages his flights with blasts, smears, rumbles and riffs. The horn section takes an intriguing turn on their own before the whole band returns to the head. This ain’t no museum music. Like Mingus, Perowsky knows that the whole canon of jazz is alive and co-existing outside of time and labels.

The order of the tunes is particularly well chosen. Each track enlarges a listener’s sense of what the band can do. Perowsky’s mid-tempo “Sprang a Lang” opens with the horn section playing flutes, the blue mood growing electrifying as O’Donnel walks the bass and John Ellis solos pretty yet bad-assed on tenor sax before Brian Drye laws down the law and breaks it on trombone. On Tom McIntosh’s “Cup Bearers” Perowsky arranges the tune with so much imagination that contagion soon sets in. Berkman’s piano solo swings so hard and with such wit and Perowsky’s tenor solo is muscular and takin’ no prisoners. Once again, Ben on the drum kit adds the right flavors and kicks; the ending with the fluttering flutes is truly big band at its best.

A note of caution is in order before playing Perowsky’s tribute to the Basie band, “Down for the Count.” Vocalist Ira Hawkins is freaking unforgettable on this tune. If one measure of a song’s appeal is its return to consciousness while doing quotidian tasks (indeed, I cut myself shaving!), then be ready to hear Hawkins’ rich baritone voice all day long in one’s head: “When I first heard that music, it turned my whole life around, that swing, that style, the Basie sound.” Once again, the arrangement has the band bursting into joy; they comment, support, challenge and uplift the singer, the song and the other players. Word to your motha: they are not seeking to be Basie’s band; rather, they give thanks for what Basie did for big bands. Similarly, the band does not seek to out-Ellington the Duke on “Do Nothin’ Til You Hear from Me.” Rather, Perowsky’s unique arrangement causes a listener to hear this most famous tune in new ways. Antonie Drye wah-wahs away on his signifyin’ trumpet and Frank wails dervish-like on clarinet. The harmonies are lush and the blends are sublime.

John Lewis’ classic “Two Bass Hit” is also made new in this blast-a-thon version featuring Ben on drums, Bob Franceschini’s honking and growling “out” choruses on tenor sax and Chris Rogers reaching and preaching on trumpet. “Paris Dreams,” a beautifully arranged original tune by Perowsky, is the CD’s secret weapon brought into full manifestation by Sam Burtis’ amazing trombone solo. Larry Young’s tribute to Coltrane, “Talkin’ About JC,” gets quite the big band treatment. Trumpeter Waldron Ricks’ solo is bright moments abounding, and Roger Rosenberg reaches deep down into the lower register to showcase the baritone saxophone’s extraordinary appeal as a solo instrument. What an ending!

It is a rare delight to hear so much great music from so many great musicians who know how to blend, bend and send listeners to heavenly places. I’ve heard a lot of music from Frank Perowsky over the years, but An Afternoon in Gowanus is an outstanding example of his multiple skills as band leader, composer, arranger and player. Go to YouTube’s FPJO Birdland (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxJ3ZmQVrKg) for a taste before purchase.

Being, Becoming My Triple Identity by Semira Ahemed

Identity is given and perceived; we are born as we are without choosing our race, gender or family. All three are our bases to understand or realize who we are, but they are not the only identities we have. I am a woman who is black and Muslim. I have my own individual identity even if I am overlapped by group identities. However, people perceive me by the stereotypes and labels that are put on my group identities. While growing up, there were moments in which I wanted to change myself to be accepted until I realized that even if I do everything in my power it is not enough to fit in the puzzle. It is not enough even if I remove my hijab, change my dialect or adopt a stranger style. Moreover, I should not have to change my shape to fit in the puzzle when I know I can still fit in with my authentic self. People try all sorts of things with the hopes of finding their true self; for me, my journey of self-discovery has led me to college. Attending a university is my journey to define who I am, and Alan Watts, Gloria Anzaldua, and Susan Faludi have helped me to truly embrace my triple identity.

I am a person of color, but that does not stop me from engaging with people of all kinds; I have friends from China, Czechoslovakia, and Russia. I am Muslim, but that does not limit me from reasoning and enjoying freedom. Religion is not a challenge in my life; rather it is my motivation to find the truth, to find my purpose. I am a woman, but it does not mean I am weak. It is my strength to fight against all odds and to experience this world differently. I am all three of these things at once with my character, intelligence, and heart. Nevertheless, people make their assumptions by what they see without interacting with me. 

It is easy to be noticed when I am the only Muslim, black or woman in a classroom or social gathering. Yet I do not freak out being the only one because it is my opportunity to truly show and represent all three identities. It is also common to be bombarded with the following questions: Who obliged you to wear the headscarf? Are you suppressed? Are you sure you are capable of doing it? Don’t you think it is better for boys to do it? Why do you try to be the first? When are you planning to marry? People ask me if I am from Africa as if it is one country. They wonder why I raise my voice and laugh so loudly. They are confused about how I wear my hijab.
 

          

All these questions are triggered by the stereotypes and ignorance surrounding my triple identity. Then I ask: Is it a freedom to decide which part of my body to show? Cannot one see that I cover my hair and not my brain? Is it my choice to be perceived for my character and intelligence, but not for my body look? How can we as women show what we are capable of when we are not even given the opportunity to start with? How can physical strength still have such a value in the 21st century? How is it that speaking one’s mind and expressing one’s emotions are associated with arrogance? How does my skin color still create a challenge to be accepted as a human? Who are you to tell me that I am weak without knowing my background and the challenges I overcome? Does wearing my hijab like this makes me less Muslim or is it my way of expressing my religion and my origin together?

Growing up in a conservative Muslim family, there were rules and values that I had to follow. However, I never questioned my family about what was right and wrong. I never had the guts to decide for myself because I acted like every other Muslim girl in my village. I loved playing soccer, but there were no girls whom I could play with since girls stayed at home with their mothers. Indeed, it was even hard to play with boys because girls were supposed to be modest. Alan Watts in The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are writes, “It is a special kind of enlightenment to have this feeling that the usual, the way things normally are, is odd….” (Watts 11). Watts’ insight relates to me whenever I question the status quo. I did not have the opportunity to know him before coming to college, but without reading his works I related with him through my rebellious actions. I played soccer breaking the ordinary norm and led my team to win the sub-city soccer competition. Even though what I did was simple, it was my first step toward identifying who I am. An African adage says, “Until the antelope wins the fight, the tales of victory shall always be the lion’s” (African). This proverb is a constant reminder to write my own history and not to repeat the same story women before me had—a story that was written by the society in which they lived.

I never knew a woman whom I could look upon as a role model. Not seeing a person who was like me in the dreams that I wanted to achieve made it seem quite impossible. The life cycle of a girl in my village was all too predictable. She goes to school just to learn how to read and write because marriage is the obvious next phase in life after high school. Warsan Shire, a Somali-British poet says, “It is not my responsibility to be beautiful, I am not alive for that purpose. My existence is not how desirable you find me” (Shire). But in my village a woman’s beauty was more valued than her intelligence; at the end of the day, it is the man who is in charge of everything. After growing up in a village with such low expectations for women, I still do not believe that I am at Hofstra pursuing my undergraduate degree without paying anything. However, I still think about the girls in my community who did not have the opportunity like me to pursue their passion and dream. They are in a closed box which they cannot escape without doing something out of the ordinary. I now have better opportunities than ever before, but Susan Faludi, in her introduction to Backlash: The Undeclared War against Women, cautioned me not to be distracted by the media to fully achieve my gender equality. Moreover, as Malala Yousafzai said, “I raise my voice not so that I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard” (Yousafzai).

We only notice our racial identity when we embed ourselves with other social groups. I am from Ethiopia, a country that was never colonized, which made it easy to see people for who they are rather than their skin color. It was Hollywood movies that introduced me to the idea of color and the privilege and discrimination that comes along with it. I never had a color scanner glass to evaluate people and that has given me an invaluable chance to engage with diverse people at Hofstra. Nevertheless, most people do not wear the glasses I do, and some are colorblind to believe all should be the same with one homogenous culture and dialect. I even questioned myself if my English accent with Amharic root and some British pronunciation was not enough in America. But Gloria Anzaldua, a Chicana writer, gave me the courage not to be ashamed of my dialect but to be proud since it reflects my identity. Moreover, pursuing my undergraduate degree outside of my continent far away from my family is giving me the opportunity to define my identity independently. Developing a double consciousness is essential, and according to W.E.B. DuBois, it is the sense of looking at one’s self through the eyes of others. Just staying one semester in college helped open my eyes to see myself through the experience of others who have a completely different background, culture and identity.

           

I never thought I would question the beliefs I held true until I read Alan Watts. He challenged me to rethink if I do things out of humanity or for the sake of collecting good deeds to go to paradise. I used to do good things because my religion said so, but now in my heart I am conscious of what is right. Alan Watts helped me to see the interconnectedness in the universe and to view events without greed and ego. His book made me more responsible than I was before. I am now more sensitive to the value of the love I give to animals and people.

It would be a lie to say that I am not changing throughout my university experience. College has been more than just academics; it is a place to search my true self and transition to adulthood. Indeed, Lao Tzu is right when he said, “If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present” (Tzu). It is now my everyday purpose to find peace within myself and to become the best version of who I am. Every person I meet and all the books I read are helping me to uncover my true personality on my continuing life journey.

Works Cited

Alake, Olu. And Who AM I? Cultural Diversity, Identities and Difference. N.p.,15 Dec.2005.

Web 5 Nov.2018

Meah, Asad. Awaken The Greatness Within. 33 Inspiring Lao Tzu Quotes. 2015. Web. 26

Nov.2018.

Shire, Warsan. Goodreads, https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/.2018. Web. 6 Dec.2018

Watts Alan. The Book; on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are. New York: Pantheon,

1966. Menantol. Web. 06 Dec. 2016

Yousafzai, Malala. Goodreads, https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/850987. 2018. Web. 28          Nov.2018