“It’s no disgrace being a black man, but it’s terribly inconvenient.” –Bert Williams
Video: “cuz he’s black”
In his poem, “cuz he’s black” Javon Johnson tells a story about being a black man in America. In this piece, Johnson begins his poem talking about his 4-year-old nephew and his fascination for the world with questions like “Uncle, why is the sky blue? Uncle, how do cars go? Uncle, why don’t dogs talk? Uncle, uncle uncle…”
But then his nephew sees a cop, lowers his seat and tells his uncle that they need to hide. Johnson lets out his frustration and anger that his 4-year-old nephew “learned to hide from the cops well before he knew how to read, [and] angrier that his survival depends more on his ability to deal with authorities than it does his own literacy.”
Then he lies to him. He tells him to stop hiding because he has no reason to be afraid. Yet, Johnson knows that being a black man in America gives his nephew every right to be afraid. It gives him the right to be afraid about the lives of black men that are lost daily because their only crime is being a black man,afraid that someday he will be seen as a threat by simply walking down the street at night,afraid that Kiese Laymon’s personal experiences with black violence could one day be similar to his own, and afraid that these experiences will often be ignored because black violence is seen as a “black problem” rather than an American problem.
“It’s not about if the shooter is racist,” Johnson says, “It’s about how poor black boys are treated as problems well before [they’re] treated as people. Black boys cannot afford to play cops and robbers if [they’re] always considered the latter. Don’t have the luxuries of playing war if [they’re] already in one.”
Johnson creates a space for young black boys and black men in this poem. He speaks about his uncertainty and fear, and his uncertainty of his nephew’s future. It’s like in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man where many Americans cannot see black men for nothing more than a figment of their imagination. They cannot see these men as someone’s son, brother, friend or the man that once was that 4-year-old boy with a fascination with the world.
In this 21st century narration of blackness, Johnson’s poem tells a story from inside a place where he understands what it means to be a black man in America. He’s not trying to tell the story of all black men in America, because “the” story does not exist. Instead Johnson tells his story, for there are many other stories that have been told, are waiting to be told and will never be told. It’s not thinking the story of one black man is the story of all black men. It’s not thinking that black men are looking for sympathy or apologies. This poem is about recognizing black humanity and allowing these men to be able to walk in the spaces they have created for themselves. Johnson is not afraid to become vulnerable and admit his uncertainty, his anger, and his fears. He speaks from a place that his 4-year-old nephew cannot yet comprehend, but will soon understand.
Johnson ends with, “And it scares me to know, that he like so many other black boys, is getting ready for a war, I can’t prepare him for.”
So what does it mean to be a black in America? I’ll never know. But this poem does make me think about my six and one-year-old nephews and how sometimes, I’m not ready for them to grow up.