Nigeria Jones: Part Three–Epilogue

This declaration of the united states of Nigeria Jones, when in the course of my story, it becomes necessary for me to dissolve the political, mental, and emotional bands which have connected me to others, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of my ancestors entitle me, a decent respect for my own opinions requires that I should declare the causes which impel me to this separation.

I hold these truths to be self-evident, that I am created equal, that I am endowed by my ancestors with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Air, Water, Food, Land, Shelter, Safety, Freedom, Love, and the pursuit of Joy.

I hold these truths to be self-evident, that I am created equal, that I am endowed by my ancestors with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Air, Water, Food, Land, Shelter, Safety, Freedom, Love, and the pursuit of Joy.

“I joke that Mom’s part of a coven. Or else she’d only know the bluegrass and Appalachian Mountains music she grew up on.”

“We don’t need apologies; we need reparations.”

In this class, we keep it cordial and pretend that we never kissed and opened a door to the potential of us being a thing.

And I guess you’ve never heard of the countless wars, massacres, and desecration of sacred land caused by Europeans, including the Quakers, to annihilate the Native population on Turtle Island.

Best argument gets bragging rights and an exemption for the next written assignment.

When we think of great movements throughout history, revolutions that have changed the course of human existence, we do not often just celebrate entire groups of people. We do not exalt the nations and armies over the leaders who have led them to overthrowing oppressive regimes to make way for a brave new world.

We do not exalt the nations and armies over the leaders who have led them to overthrowing oppressive regimes to make way for a brave new world.

And thus, it is the individual who first answers the call to battle, and it is the individual who takes the liberty of challenging the status quo to dismantle oppressive systems.

Leave out the snark and quips. Mutual respect is the name of the game.

There are rules and protocols and decorum.

There are rules and protocols and decorum.

“I’ve watched Amistad, about a slave uprising on a ship,” I continue.

She’s wearing a church-lady wig, some old-school cat-eye glasses, and a vintage polyester paisley shirt from the seventies.

We’re not a monolith all right, with everyone wearing different kinds of costumes—a vampire, an alien, a rapper, viral memes, celebrities I don’t recognize, and anime characters are a few.

He’s wearing an argyle vest over a white button-down shirt and a bow tie.

“It’s like you’re in a perpetual state of victimhood. It’s been almost two hundred years, and we’ve made progress.”

“Social justice warriors fight for the rights of all marginalized people, and not just...hetero-cis Black men.”

“Kind of like being a girl and biracial at the same time,” Sage says.
“Intersectionality,” Diane says. “Coined by scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw. We’re not all just one thing. This country likes to racialize us without acknowledging the other parts of ourselves. And we can still be all these things within the context of being Black in this school.”

The white kids here are the endless sea, and their salty mix of microaggressions and guilt, apologies and audacities are oppressive, like atmospheric pressure.

“Radical message, but I’m afraid the language taped to your backs may be offensive to our younger, more impressionable friends.”

“Diane was instrumental in getting you accepted, but legally, our hands are tied.”

“I understand you’re upset, but I answer to a board of trustees.”
“That’s not true. You have all the power in the world.”

“I get it. You don’t want me here because I’m a liability. I’m no longer an asset.”

“Liam, you should’ve double-checked with Wikipedia Black over here,” he says. “If she says it’s cultural appropriation, then it is.”

The portrait is against a newer structure that stands besides a redbrick tenement with off-white shutters.

She sees me and I should be running to her but she’s ephemeral and transparent.

This Halloween night is supposed to be filled with ghosts and darkness and fear and the onset of winter. But there’s a lightness to this moment. Like, this change might be the threshold between the new life ahead of me and the death of my old life behind me.

Systems and institutions like schools and hospitals rob us of our sovereignty, he says.

Time can either have wings or two legs. And on July Fourth in that hospital, in that emergency room, everything walked along the edges of my memory like an aging elder. Slow. Deliberate. Careful.

I was raised not to celebrate Thanksgiving, of course, to be in solidarity with our Native brothers and sisters.

But this is Aunt Sharon’s house and she’s not part of the Movement and she can do whatever she wants in her own damn house. She’s been saying this for the last three weeks I’ve been here, like it’s a mantra.

The last time I cooked this much was for her repast after her funeral, which we didn’t call a funeral but a homegoing, where everyone was dressed in white and we had drummers, and it was a celebration that I’d buried deep in my memory, until now.

I let go of my father’s hands and let everything, everything, ride the waves of my tears because I crack open and become a torrent.

My father and I had made enough amends for him to celebrate me today.

Glasses, a black sweatshirt, and a copper ankh necklace give him a different edge, like he’s settling into being part of the Movement, looking like a young, passionate Black hippie activist.

The aunties all gather around Freedom to dote on him, and I feel like a stranger in what used to be my house that is not my home.

“To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.”