I was opening act for the Tom Joyner Comedy Revue back in the day (Thanks to Stan Branson )
My brother came to Jackson, MS from TN to support me. We got to meet Jay Anthony Brown backstage.
Funny, Jethro H. Anderson road tripped it to Little Rock, Arkansas to see me open for Patti LaBelle ( Thanks to Arden Barnett ) and Jacqueline Anderson road tripped it to Mississippi to see me open for Brian McKnight ( Thanks to Arden again)
Uh... Arve Anderson you got to catch up... lol.
Seriously though, Arve was stationed at Fort Belvoir on this day 20 years ago. He got the call saying, " Your sister was in that bus that went into that river near Stony Creek, Virginia"
The Army let him hit the road to come see about me. My baby brother held me while I cried, while I tried to process why Adisa had to die.
Jethro, at the time, was expecting his first born son with his wife Jamiletta Chestnut Anderson. They called me 2 weeks later, wanting to have a name with some meaning for that new baby.
I missed the call, but they remembered my pain, they wanted a name that started with the letter J.
I called Nikki Skies and she said what about 'Jelani'?
I called my brother back he said, "You too late, she named him Jamir, but his middle name is Adisa, after your friend that died. Jamir Anderson middle name Adisa!
**crying**
All this to say, I am so grateful to God, Our Parents, our Ancestors, the community we grew up in and so much more because my siblings take care of me in the good times and the bad.
When I achieve, WE achieve.
When I get this degree, THIS IS OUR PHD!
YES, Jerene, I am looking for a JOB!!!
Tuesday, August 1, 2017
Tribute to Onyi and Esom (Thank you for welcoming Nadja and I into your lives)
A Tribute to Onyi, Mother of Three (and her daughter Esom)
Sister Friend Onyi and her daughter Esom moved away to Georgia this morning.
Esom showed up one January as the new little Black Girl at school, so Nadja was not alone anymore.
Nadja immediately stepped to her and asked, " Do you want to be my friend?" Esom agreed and they made 'Little Black Girl History' for the past 4 years.
They laughed, argued, cried, consoled, developed crushes, watched their Mamas struggle, bonded in battles against their brothers, yelled and screamed at each other.... the regular journey for girls their age for sure.
But, what makes me cry the most right now is knowing that those moments will stay with them. They cried and hugged last night. I got to crying too, oh it was a mess, but it was progress.
I had no idea that during all the times I was driving these Little Queens-in-Training around that they were actually LISTENING to me.
For the past few days, Esom has been saying, "Tell me a story, you know, like the time Nadja was born or the time you were young, and speak Louisiana" (side eye, I think she means Southern).
I had no idea she loved my southern... accent and stories, just as much as Nadja loves them.
May we adults never underestimate the power of human contact and conversation.
Children still watch and listen and try to become the best ... or the worse... we demonstrate to them. (Which means neither of these Baby Queens will be at a loss for ways, methods, and means to give someone a good cussing out cause they were around me for years, but only when all other methods of sanity and common sense have failed).
Most importantly, I required them to be more than they wanted to embrace. They could say 'hello in about 5 or 6 different languages, but could not say 'hello' in Bété (Nadja) or in Igbo (Esom) not even in 'Colored or Negro' but that's another Black Culture story.
So, I made Esom get her mom on the phone and Nadja get her dad on the phone to learn how to say hello in their African Ethnic (some say Tribal) tongue. It was so foreign to them they laughed and giggled so I made them put the words to beat with a rhythm.
The next day, they did not remember.... but the fact I made them do it, THEY WILL REMEMBER.
Nadja, you are a Bété / Tikar child, you have an African identity, you are not the empty- headed, souless savage your American identity claims and still tells you to be.
Esom, you are an Igbo/Iduma child, you have an African identity, you are not the empty- headed, souless savage your American identity claims and still tells you to be.
I pray to the Creator that every second you were /are in my presence that you learned how to Love and how to Survive.
Take it to the next level, learn how to thrive, in your skin, in your African Heritage, as it is experienced, as it is lived in America.
I love yall (and your brothers too -- Onyeddi, Ebube, Jean Yves Boa, Djolo, and Jalen and the newest sibling, girlchild, Little Awa too).
I love you all, remember to Love yourself and to be 'YOU',
Mama Jolivette
Sister Friend Onyi and her daughter Esom moved away to Georgia this morning.
Esom showed up one January as the new little Black Girl at school, so Nadja was not alone anymore.
Nadja immediately stepped to her and asked, " Do you want to be my friend?" Esom agreed and they made 'Little Black Girl History' for the past 4 years.
They laughed, argued, cried, consoled, developed crushes, watched their Mamas struggle, bonded in battles against their brothers, yelled and screamed at each other.... the regular journey for girls their age for sure.
But, what makes me cry the most right now is knowing that those moments will stay with them. They cried and hugged last night. I got to crying too, oh it was a mess, but it was progress.
I had no idea that during all the times I was driving these Little Queens-in-Training around that they were actually LISTENING to me.
For the past few days, Esom has been saying, "Tell me a story, you know, like the time Nadja was born or the time you were young, and speak Louisiana" (side eye, I think she means Southern).
I had no idea she loved my southern... accent and stories, just as much as Nadja loves them.
May we adults never underestimate the power of human contact and conversation.
Children still watch and listen and try to become the best ... or the worse... we demonstrate to them. (Which means neither of these Baby Queens will be at a loss for ways, methods, and means to give someone a good cussing out cause they were around me for years, but only when all other methods of sanity and common sense have failed).
Most importantly, I required them to be more than they wanted to embrace. They could say 'hello in about 5 or 6 different languages, but could not say 'hello' in Bété (Nadja) or in Igbo (Esom) not even in 'Colored or Negro' but that's another Black Culture story.
So, I made Esom get her mom on the phone and Nadja get her dad on the phone to learn how to say hello in their African Ethnic (some say Tribal) tongue. It was so foreign to them they laughed and giggled so I made them put the words to beat with a rhythm.
The next day, they did not remember.... but the fact I made them do it, THEY WILL REMEMBER.
Nadja, you are a Bété / Tikar child, you have an African identity, you are not the empty- headed, souless savage your American identity claims and still tells you to be.
Esom, you are an Igbo/Iduma child, you have an African identity, you are not the empty- headed, souless savage your American identity claims and still tells you to be.
I pray to the Creator that every second you were /are in my presence that you learned how to Love and how to Survive.
Take it to the next level, learn how to thrive, in your skin, in your African Heritage, as it is experienced, as it is lived in America.
I love yall (and your brothers too -- Onyeddi, Ebube, Jean Yves Boa, Djolo, and Jalen and the newest sibling, girlchild, Little Awa too).
I love you all, remember to Love yourself and to be 'YOU',
Mama Jolivette
Monday, July 10, 2017
Twenty Years Ago,
July 8, 1997:
I boarded a flight from Jackson, MS to Detroit, Michigan to work for the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development.
Mrs. Parks liked a poem I had written and recited in her honor when she traveled to Jackson a year earlier (1996) and sent me a message via Theresa, the then manager of Smith Robertson Museum and Cultural Center, offering me an opportunity to work with her youth program, Pathways to Freedom' the next year, if I was interested. I was interested. During her 1996 visit, she requested information about how to reach the Attorney Chokwe Lumumba. She had followed his career from his time in Detroit. Since Nubia Lumumba had taken me under her wing when I was an intern at New Stage Theater, I had his phone number and Mrs Parks had dinner with the Lumumbas while in Jackson. Rukia Lumumba and Mayor Chokwe Lumumba may have memories and images from that dinner.
Flash forward, back to July 1997 --
My Aunt Rosie picked me up from the airport and took me to the Institute. It was on Wildemere Street, the same street name my Aunt Rosie and Uncle George had lived on for decades. I had spent a few summers with them and my cousins Belinda Rogers and Anthony, since I was 3 years old.
This would be a bus tour from Windsor Canada into Detroit and through several States in the U.S retracing some places and spaces on the Underground Railroad. This would be a 30 day bus tour with Black children ages 11 to 17 whose parents entrusted the Institute with educating them about their heritage as Black American and Black Caribbean children ( two students were from the Bahamas).
I was to be artist, educator, and the person Jethro and Helen Anderson raised. And that is who and what I was.
35 of us set out on this glorious opportunity. Only 34 of us made it back to Detroit alive.
July 8, 1997:
I boarded a flight from Jackson, MS to Detroit, Michigan to work for the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development.
Mrs. Parks liked a poem I had written and recited in her honor when she traveled to Jackson a year earlier (1996) and sent me a message via Theresa, the then manager of Smith Robertson Museum and Cultural Center, offering me an opportunity to work with her youth program, Pathways to Freedom' the next year, if I was interested. I was interested. During her 1996 visit, she requested information about how to reach the Attorney Chokwe Lumumba. She had followed his career from his time in Detroit. Since Nubia Lumumba had taken me under her wing when I was an intern at New Stage Theater, I had his phone number and Mrs Parks had dinner with the Lumumbas while in Jackson. Rukia Lumumba and Mayor Chokwe Lumumba may have memories and images from that dinner.
Flash forward, back to July 1997 --
My Aunt Rosie picked me up from the airport and took me to the Institute. It was on Wildemere Street, the same street name my Aunt Rosie and Uncle George had lived on for decades. I had spent a few summers with them and my cousins Belinda Rogers and Anthony, since I was 3 years old.
This would be a bus tour from Windsor Canada into Detroit and through several States in the U.S retracing some places and spaces on the Underground Railroad. This would be a 30 day bus tour with Black children ages 11 to 17 whose parents entrusted the Institute with educating them about their heritage as Black American and Black Caribbean children ( two students were from the Bahamas).
I was to be artist, educator, and the person Jethro and Helen Anderson raised. And that is who and what I was.
35 of us set out on this glorious opportunity. Only 34 of us made it back to Detroit alive.
Twenty Years Ago,
July 7, 1997:
I witnessed the first Black Mayor, Honorable Harvey Johnson, be inaugurated in Jackson, MS. I remember two things very clearly about that day.
One, I wanted to read a poem but was told no by the organizers, only to realize why on that day. I witnessed Dr. Margaret Walker Alexander recite a poem for the occassion. I was so humbled and grateful to even be taken seriously as a poet in the same city as Mother Margaret. I bowed down in full genuflect to her with a smile on my face and in full acceptance of my place as one who wanted to be one of her 'literary children'.
Two, the White man with a sign, a placard, that said "No good ever came from letting the slaves take over the plantation!" He was being protected by two JPD police officers, I suspect so no one would whip his ass. Both officers were Black.
July 7, 1997:
I witnessed the first Black Mayor, Honorable Harvey Johnson, be inaugurated in Jackson, MS. I remember two things very clearly about that day.
One, I wanted to read a poem but was told no by the organizers, only to realize why on that day. I witnessed Dr. Margaret Walker Alexander recite a poem for the occassion. I was so humbled and grateful to even be taken seriously as a poet in the same city as Mother Margaret. I bowed down in full genuflect to her with a smile on my face and in full acceptance of my place as one who wanted to be one of her 'literary children'.
Two, the White man with a sign, a placard, that said "No good ever came from letting the slaves take over the plantation!" He was being protected by two JPD police officers, I suspect so no one would whip his ass. Both officers were Black.
Twenty Years Ago,
July 5, 1997:
I was opening act for Patti LaBelle at Thalia Mara Hall in Jackson, MS, the Flame Tour!
The poems I recited had migrated from the Jackson club scene, where I opened for Karen Mus'sang Brown at the Snooty Fox to a 2500 seat, sold out crowd.
I did that gig for free because I recognized opportunity when it knocked on my door.
Thank you Arden Barnett!
Thank you Jackson, Mississippi (too many people to name)!
July 5, 1997:
I was opening act for Patti LaBelle at Thalia Mara Hall in Jackson, MS, the Flame Tour!
The poems I recited had migrated from the Jackson club scene, where I opened for Karen Mus'sang Brown at the Snooty Fox to a 2500 seat, sold out crowd.
I did that gig for free because I recognized opportunity when it knocked on my door.
Thank you Arden Barnett!
Thank you Jackson, Mississippi (too many people to name)!
Tuesday, February 28, 2017
Dear Black People,
I see your silence. I hear your survival. I have fought myself enough, I have no choice but to write this letter to you. Afterwards, maybe, just maybe, I will be able to sleep. The illness will leave my body, I will be able to breathe properly.
First, a word. RECONSTRUCTION. By definition, if something is reconstructed, it must have been torn down, broken, pushed toward obliteration, or destroyed. Yes, that would be us. Yet, we use the word RECONSTRUCTION to talk about an Era, a time in history or memory. Yet, in each RECONSTRUCTION that has taken place in the United States, it lived and died because of how WE, BLACK PEOPLE were treated during those times.
Simply stated, when WE, BLACK PEOPLE, endeavored to DECONSTRUCT the hypocrisy of this nation to the point of receiving our just due, the enemy of WE, BLACK PEOPLE, revolted, refused to acknowledge our progress and made haste, to put us in a PLACE that made this enemy feel comfortable again.
According to a book by Dr William Barber, we are embarking upon a "Third Reconstruction" and each one has been and continues to be about WE, BLACK PEOPLE.
THE FIRST RECONSTRUCTION
It was 1875. WE, BLACK PEOPLE, worked for decades to gain access into the political system to be recognized as free, citizens, citizens with the right to participate as a citizen in all ways human beings exercise their citizenship. OUR EFFORTS were met with things like the "grandfather clause" that said if your grand father did not vote, you can not vote. 4 million recently emancipated people whose grandfather's were ENSLAVED would be denied the right to vote and so would their progeny. This was but one method used to stop WE, BLACK PEOPLE, from reconstructing the United States into including "ALL people". They used literacy, or the lack of access to deny access.
THE SECOND RECONSTRUCTION
It begins in 1954 with the Brown v Board of Education school desegregation of public schools case, and with the 1955 murder of Emmett Till. Progress for WE, BLACK PEOPLE, was seen as OUR being just as good as white people so for every action toward BLACK PROGRESS during this time, we were attacked and many were violently killed. Killed for exercising our rights to be citizens of a PLACE, to exist as human beings in a SPACE.
They used violence when trickery about our lack of intelligence, our inability to read and write, proved false. Since they are educating themselves we can't use the 1875 method of disfranchisment so they killed us from 1955 with Till to 1968 with Dr. King.
THE THIRD RECONSTRUCTION
With Black excellence on display from the White house daily, the tactics used against WE, BLACK PEOPLE, are being implemented against Muslims and Mexicans, but don't you dare think that this IS NOT ABOUT YOU TOO.
Privatization of prisons, destruction of public schools.... 1875 it was Slavery and Emancipation. Majority Black men in prison and will take the place of migrant workers in fields, sound like enslavement to me.
1955 Desegregation of public education.... now the destruction of schools that must accept everyone by law.... Privatization and states rights sounds like RESEGREGATION OF EDUCATION to me.
To keep a plain, same games, same hateful players, our reality is hidden in the layers of our history, of our forcing this nation to live up to what it says it is.... all the while building while the enemy destroys.... generationally!
Peace,
Jolivette Anderson-Douoning
I see your silence. I hear your survival. I have fought myself enough, I have no choice but to write this letter to you. Afterwards, maybe, just maybe, I will be able to sleep. The illness will leave my body, I will be able to breathe properly.
First, a word. RECONSTRUCTION. By definition, if something is reconstructed, it must have been torn down, broken, pushed toward obliteration, or destroyed. Yes, that would be us. Yet, we use the word RECONSTRUCTION to talk about an Era, a time in history or memory. Yet, in each RECONSTRUCTION that has taken place in the United States, it lived and died because of how WE, BLACK PEOPLE were treated during those times.
Simply stated, when WE, BLACK PEOPLE, endeavored to DECONSTRUCT the hypocrisy of this nation to the point of receiving our just due, the enemy of WE, BLACK PEOPLE, revolted, refused to acknowledge our progress and made haste, to put us in a PLACE that made this enemy feel comfortable again.
According to a book by Dr William Barber, we are embarking upon a "Third Reconstruction" and each one has been and continues to be about WE, BLACK PEOPLE.
THE FIRST RECONSTRUCTION
It was 1875. WE, BLACK PEOPLE, worked for decades to gain access into the political system to be recognized as free, citizens, citizens with the right to participate as a citizen in all ways human beings exercise their citizenship. OUR EFFORTS were met with things like the "grandfather clause" that said if your grand father did not vote, you can not vote. 4 million recently emancipated people whose grandfather's were ENSLAVED would be denied the right to vote and so would their progeny. This was but one method used to stop WE, BLACK PEOPLE, from reconstructing the United States into including "ALL people". They used literacy, or the lack of access to deny access.
THE SECOND RECONSTRUCTION
It begins in 1954 with the Brown v Board of Education school desegregation of public schools case, and with the 1955 murder of Emmett Till. Progress for WE, BLACK PEOPLE, was seen as OUR being just as good as white people so for every action toward BLACK PROGRESS during this time, we were attacked and many were violently killed. Killed for exercising our rights to be citizens of a PLACE, to exist as human beings in a SPACE.
They used violence when trickery about our lack of intelligence, our inability to read and write, proved false. Since they are educating themselves we can't use the 1875 method of disfranchisment so they killed us from 1955 with Till to 1968 with Dr. King.
THE THIRD RECONSTRUCTION
With Black excellence on display from the White house daily, the tactics used against WE, BLACK PEOPLE, are being implemented against Muslims and Mexicans, but don't you dare think that this IS NOT ABOUT YOU TOO.
Privatization of prisons, destruction of public schools.... 1875 it was Slavery and Emancipation. Majority Black men in prison and will take the place of migrant workers in fields, sound like enslavement to me.
1955 Desegregation of public education.... now the destruction of schools that must accept everyone by law.... Privatization and states rights sounds like RESEGREGATION OF EDUCATION to me.
To keep a plain, same games, same hateful players, our reality is hidden in the layers of our history, of our forcing this nation to live up to what it says it is.... all the while building while the enemy destroys.... generationally!
Peace,
Jolivette Anderson-Douoning
Friday, September 30, 2016
Good Morning Facebook Family,
No humor this morning, I am in deep thought as I sit in my favorite coffee spot. These thoughts hit me as I got out of bed this morning. Here they are:
1. According to Dr. John Henrik Clarke and the history of Europe, Europeans turned on each other. The wealthy made slaves of the poor. They called the poor 'serfs'. The system was called feudalism.
2. The wealthy became so disgusted with the sight of the poor they shipped them away. They considered the newly "discovered" lands to be big trash cans to dump their human waste people, the poor, into said trash bins.
3. We are witnessing an American version of people of European descent turning on each other.
I have come to the #CulturalConclusion that the book I have been reading by historian Nancy Isenberg is describing the #WhiteCulture many of the students I have encountered have been searching to find.
Well, it has reached the mainstream, it is no longer whispered about in hushed tones around dinner tables or spoken aloud crudely and brazenly among Whites or thrown as insults toward Blacks.
It has made the editorial pages of Newspapers and it simply says, "Donald Trump is unfit to be President'.
Donald Trump is the European trash that was kicked out of Europe by the wealthy. He got his revenge by becoming wealthy, by doing to others what was done to his family on a particular, cultural level. His wealth gives him great access and power, globally, but he wants more.
However, he doesn't have enough power or money to change his pedigree, and that is the bulk of the battle we see being played out in 'political' arenas. Be not deceived, this is a cultural war among White people. It is history that went around and it is coming back around slapping the crap out of us daily.
Trump is incapable of being humble and accepting the good, bad, and ugly of his past so he projects his self hatred and ugliness onto others by being controlling, lying, stealing, breaking rules, being abusive, and teaching his children to be the same way.
He is incapable of being a 'public servant' because he cannot fathom 'serving' anything nor any one. He doesn't think he is God, he does think he can 'Out-God God' meaning he thinks he can do God better than God does God.
4. This has very little to do with Black people. However, it has much to do with what is at the core of our struggles, our sojourn here in the United States, Institutional Oppression.
5. This clown show in the political circus that baffles the brain and crushes the soul and traumatized our children is what institutional violence, hatred, greed, immorality, and low character looks like. Especially when it oppresses Black people.
6. This is what America is and what It does at its ugliest, and Donald Trump is its personification, and he did not just pop up from nowhere. He is the product of the hate that began to openly ooze out of a #WhiteCollectiveConsciousness when Barack Obama became the first person of African descent to be the POTUS. It is a consciousness that puts you in a group that knows the good, bad, and ugliness of being White and the codes surrounding communication within that group. Certain things are not supposed to be discussed outside the group. We are now privy to those conversations. They have come out of the #WhiteCulturalCloset.
7. What Trump is doing to America and White Americans, those of European descent, is what America has done to Black Americans, we of African descent. He uses us to try to make himself look good while being a total contradiction based on how he has treated us. You love us when you need us, we are invisible and insignificant when you don't.
We see America accepting racist White folk into the mainstream. Trump called out Hillary Clinton on this issue during the debate. He said something like "I think Hillary agrees with me but she can't say that she does" .
Based on the fact that the uproar is over Trump's misogyny and NOT over his racism, it supports my argument that simply says, the "race card" is always played by White people to the benefit of White people, even when they are at war with each other for power.
Peace,
Jolivette Anderson-Douoning
No humor this morning, I am in deep thought as I sit in my favorite coffee spot. These thoughts hit me as I got out of bed this morning. Here they are:
1. According to Dr. John Henrik Clarke and the history of Europe, Europeans turned on each other. The wealthy made slaves of the poor. They called the poor 'serfs'. The system was called feudalism.
2. The wealthy became so disgusted with the sight of the poor they shipped them away. They considered the newly "discovered" lands to be big trash cans to dump their human waste people, the poor, into said trash bins.
3. We are witnessing an American version of people of European descent turning on each other.
I have come to the #CulturalConclusion that the book I have been reading by historian Nancy Isenberg is describing the #WhiteCulture many of the students I have encountered have been searching to find.
Well, it has reached the mainstream, it is no longer whispered about in hushed tones around dinner tables or spoken aloud crudely and brazenly among Whites or thrown as insults toward Blacks.
It has made the editorial pages of Newspapers and it simply says, "Donald Trump is unfit to be President'.
Donald Trump is the European trash that was kicked out of Europe by the wealthy. He got his revenge by becoming wealthy, by doing to others what was done to his family on a particular, cultural level. His wealth gives him great access and power, globally, but he wants more.
However, he doesn't have enough power or money to change his pedigree, and that is the bulk of the battle we see being played out in 'political' arenas. Be not deceived, this is a cultural war among White people. It is history that went around and it is coming back around slapping the crap out of us daily.
Trump is incapable of being humble and accepting the good, bad, and ugly of his past so he projects his self hatred and ugliness onto others by being controlling, lying, stealing, breaking rules, being abusive, and teaching his children to be the same way.
He is incapable of being a 'public servant' because he cannot fathom 'serving' anything nor any one. He doesn't think he is God, he does think he can 'Out-God God' meaning he thinks he can do God better than God does God.
4. This has very little to do with Black people. However, it has much to do with what is at the core of our struggles, our sojourn here in the United States, Institutional Oppression.
5. This clown show in the political circus that baffles the brain and crushes the soul and traumatized our children is what institutional violence, hatred, greed, immorality, and low character looks like. Especially when it oppresses Black people.
6. This is what America is and what It does at its ugliest, and Donald Trump is its personification, and he did not just pop up from nowhere. He is the product of the hate that began to openly ooze out of a #WhiteCollectiveConsciousness when Barack Obama became the first person of African descent to be the POTUS. It is a consciousness that puts you in a group that knows the good, bad, and ugliness of being White and the codes surrounding communication within that group. Certain things are not supposed to be discussed outside the group. We are now privy to those conversations. They have come out of the #WhiteCulturalCloset.
7. What Trump is doing to America and White Americans, those of European descent, is what America has done to Black Americans, we of African descent. He uses us to try to make himself look good while being a total contradiction based on how he has treated us. You love us when you need us, we are invisible and insignificant when you don't.
We see America accepting racist White folk into the mainstream. Trump called out Hillary Clinton on this issue during the debate. He said something like "I think Hillary agrees with me but she can't say that she does" .
Based on the fact that the uproar is over Trump's misogyny and NOT over his racism, it supports my argument that simply says, the "race card" is always played by White people to the benefit of White people, even when they are at war with each other for power.
Peace,
Jolivette Anderson-Douoning
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