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Jesus Died to Guide the Prophet in the Moon's Blue Chunk: After Mahershala Ali

2022; Michigan State University Press; Volume: 9; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.14321/qed.9.issue-1.0079

2327-1590

Baba Badji,

Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies

It was Jesus's coronet chunk of the tooth. Hurting. It is said, it was soft. Nerves gonedead. They remained ill. Septic. Gangrenous. Weeping. Hurting. Blood vessels gonedead.Freeing, choice, outsider, and hostility in time. . . . Momma came with Jesus and saintly mantlesfrom that other secret place. Churchyards pulping with ghosts. The enslaved. Thecaged.Farms. The sea. Diaspora. Where at sea, Blue Black Boy healed Jesus's Tooth Ache. What Atlantic? What America? Patrice Lumumba declares: the art of dead —was the invention—of Africa. The Slave. Mud. Goliarda Sapienza avows:not to celebrate her death. With Vultures. Blood. The blessed space of blue angels.Me. Voodoo. There, came the gods with smooth pictures. Sunday best!When others can attack it and kill it. In its fabric. Now freeze. Give me a dose ofmud from the Nile. Pictures themselves for relics. The pride we lived for long-ago.Here is where we die in the streets of America. But Momma wants the burial to takeplace.For the pride we die, for the saga of white's violence. White violence is Americanizedviolence. It was born this way. The pride that is cheated by sovereignty. Raided. The street is cold.Even when we die in the streets of America; Momma wants our corpse to becelebrated in the church. Stripped. Blessed. It is Sunday. Killed both in the avenues of America and in the Atlantic.Bundling mud for Jesus. The prophet in the moon's blue chunk wonders. How to wonder. For the faith of intimacy. Tenderness. Softness. Refined. Fondness. Closeness. Loving. Pleasure and Love. Death and survival. Language. Dialects. Swahili. Wolof. Bambara. & of course, Diola. Imagine cloning Blackness. We come big and robust. Elephant's skeletons. Lion's blood. Where we read every white brain. Where we can program it. When to set its default-setting. Where we can mechanize the basic movement of whiteness. Imagine before Officer X fires. We melt his machine. We melt his Americanized machine. In his own fingers. Jesus said. Unpacking the graph of language. Camouflaged in his own nightmares. The American way.Here is the Okra Garden where Jesus rehearses. Meaning and blessing. Goat's blood. Jesus's Tooth. His blue Kaftan. Water. For rubbing. For cleaning. For washing. For dusting. For cleansing. For scrubbing.But Momma says, we going to church. The village is shut. From Nairobi to Missouri. The prophet came with gifts. He says, in the name of Allah. He masters blue space in the moon. For the day of judgment. But Momma says, she has bestowed our grace. She says, Blackness is the most gracious. She says, she praises the Atlantic. She poured blue dust and chemical Black so white rulers can't travel in blue waters. Momma says, we are the most merciful. Blue Black Boy came for Bush Boy in bliss. Bliss only. That was all they had. Their command for love and fire. There is a fable in Senegalese culture: that Blue Black Boy is a fable. His arrival is sacred. His arrival must be celebrated. Sunday at church. Friday in the mosque. After the recital, we went to the farm. It was summer and vultures came running. Momma came to protect us from devil. Momma protects us from devil. She says, so I can come home safely. Tenderly. Tenderly in my gracious body. Inside Momma's home there is blessings. She urges the priest to tell us a fable and history. About the slaves. The bricklayers and the orphans. We are so poor. Eating dirt and mud. Blue Black Boy came to write the prayers. Blue Black Boy came with the economy of faith. His flesh and soul are ziplocked. So, to turn-off whiteness. We break English, French and German. Fanon was right. I mean Fanon was there to turn-off whiteness. Now whiteness in Fanon's oven rusted beef. But our wisdom mused. Chewed. Grazed. Pondered. Gazed. Eyed. Intended. Predicted. Vigilant. Cautious. June Jordan's toolbox came in songs for the church. Prayers in them. Just prayers. At sea, this time for blessing. Blue Black Boy, I came for love. I came for work. I came for our bodies. Your Black body is restrained. Your Black body is electric. Black Africa was right. We are not metaphor. We came with scripts. We came to make whiteness the wounded metaphors. Etheridge Knight came with a loose pastoral. For love and the Blue-Black Boy. It was so hot. So hot. So hot. But he was mostly in sweaters. He said, he was not able to breathe at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. But Jesus was there. Jesus was just there. Jesus was there watching. To be a witness. He was a witness. There was love in the plantation. There is love in mud. Dust. Flower. Joy. The pastor came to church on Sunday. We was hot and sweaty. I was so hungry. Thinking: fried chicken. No Wendy's of course. But Ghost Momma's crispy fried chicken. Lord of Mercy. She convinced the pastor to come for lunch after the sermon. My God. The pastor's gifts. The pastor said. Jesus says. “Hallelujah anyhow. Never let your troubles get you down. Whenever troubles come your way. Hold your hands up high and say. Hallelujah anyhow!” From National. To international. To Global. Race and the education of desire. The record of the racist. What is Europe? Where is the break? What is the center of the piece? Semantic gesture. All-in Blue-Black Boy's big and lumpy head. Blue Black Boy becomes a pride to fight for devices and narratives. Wholeness.Jesus said, I will tell you. I will tell you a terrible thing. Blue Black Boy cries. Our black blood is flowing. Our black pain is flowing. Our agonizing pain flows. Livid. Infinite. Fixed. Crossed. In America. Guaranteed. Chaos. Speak in the language of being deaf. Our life. Black Lives are Americanized strength. The fucked-up American way. Black lives are in the American's mirror. Our flowers. Our nights of golden rays in the eternal blaze. The streams of slaves. The sunny fields of the slaves. Our hearts gobble sorrows. Momma says: there is no language for freedom. But Blue-Black Boy says, he came in through the verandah it was Friday; Momma wasn't home. Or Momma was about to leave for church. Or for a funeral or both. It is said. Momma liked burials. Her heart frozen by violence. She liked burials but not weddings. Weddings made Momma cry. Blue Black Boy came in the window by the sea for love and a prayer. Of course. Jesus's Filling Tooth was in the lower molars. Now, Jesus chew wood for us & the slaves.