#marainey

It shows dedication to the time period when you make a wig out of horse hair.

Do you know what the sunniest city in the world is? Yuma, fucking Arizona, homie. And i know that, for sure – as does the vast variety of Yale University motherfuckers i am acquainted with, everyone who’s been lucky for the past 22 years – because I was given found even in carceral America, something Holy, something Black, something about magic or calm in the midst of a curse – if you know Mo, you know more.

i am nothing without that basement in lawrance hall. nothing as sick as fuck at least, put every single acid trip on a reel. nothing neither without audre lorde, ma rainey, jimmy b’s here be dragons, introduced to me freshman fall by God’s mercy (and the gays)

who would i have been without it? gwen’s a kindness punk before it was ever cool, or seemed necessary: her smile welcomed me to America / didn’t ask me if Pakistan had roads, but always wanted to know if my mama was doing alright. every time i died, i waltzed to morse dining hall and so much of me hopes that the smiles i faked, exaggerated, performed in earnest, the tears i held back at times, the hurt i only shared with her, brought even a percentage of the light into gwen’s life that she, in that something Holy, something Black way, litters carelessly, constantly, democratically everywhere she goes.

the only two boys on Turtle Island who i left pieces of my heart with know who they are, half-Black, all Holy, at times confused but bite ‘em as much as u want America, you’ll never get em; behind Baldwin’s warning, a promise: here be angels.

no one dances in America like a Black femme does, no one fucked me in America with the kindness and the humanness i needed, everyone deserves, except a Black boy and no one pains, carries the burden of white people’s first world pathetic excuse for a life, like a Black body; i saw this with my own eyes, i saw the ICE truck at my border of Bedstuy and Bushwick i saw the young Black boy outside his high school, under a pig’s knee, with a whole crowd of loved ones gathered, not one able to save him, and he made the news too, but his Black life didn’t matter to white America who still bought their $5 capitalism juice from Starbucks loved their $900 lease in Brooklyn and the pigs who’d entertain their noise complaints.

my ode to the geniuses of America i witnessed was to leave, to let someone hear, anyone that the violence that makes America what it is is too harsh for me to bear,

and that there is another place i remember that i will always be your friend from, something to fly away from Amerikkka to, somewhere to come share your mind, and your heart, and your body in:

where it will be you and me, intertwined,

and only a memory of that other place – where everything cost too much and everything Black-owned wouldn’t last too long, co-opted by some California loser with borrowed guilt, stolen Blaccent, and superficial solidarity.

Ma Rainey (1923)

Gertrude Pridgett - aka the Mother of the Blues and, at one point, one half of Rainey and Rainey, Assassinators of the Blues - settled on Ma Rainey as her stage persona sometime after marrying William 'Pa' Rainey in 1904.

The young singer had already been performing in minstrel shows since her early teens, developing a stagecraft and presence that would go on to captivate audiences (sometimes racially mixed, although still in segregated seating) in large tent shows across the southern and midwestern United States.

Ma and Pa worked as a double act until the couple separated in 1916. A new show, Madame Gertrude Ma Rainey and Her Georgia Smart Set, confirmed Ma Rainey as a renowned songwriter and performer.

A contract with Paramount followed in 1923, resulting in 94 records and heavy promotion until she was unceremoniously let go when the market cooled in 1928.