Moonlight left me stunned. Stunned by how much I missed
witnessing the beauty and tenderness of Black masculinity in my life.
I walked into the theater ready to connect with this film
around the main character’s experience of queerness and left feeling like it
had given me something I had been missing but didn’t know was missing. And now
it feels like there’s a gaping hole I didn’t realize was there before.
I was raised by two Black men and a white woman. In my
formative years I thought Black masculinity WAS Blackness. I spent my early
childhood days in awe of my older brother Shany, ten yeas my senior, he and his
friends oozed cool and confidence. I’d come home from school and watch them in
the backyard a mix of Black, Latino and white teenage boys rap battling with
make-shift sound systems they’d pulled together with odds and ends. Mic stands
taped to the back of a lawn chair so they didn’t have to hold it up, leaving
their hand free for the gestures that I’d seen in rap videos.
I worshiped those boys and they doted on me. They’d fly
through our front door stopping for snacks, to say hi to my mom and tease me
and then headed straight for the back yard, the kick-it spot of my brother’s
crew. “Nigga” was thrown around with the easy camaraderie of teen boys of color,
my mom always worried, perplexed, frustrated with “the language.” She didn’t
get it but I watched and soaked up every gesture, word, nod and pound. This was
the soundtrack to my homework and afterschool snack.
My brother taught me to swim in a Mickey Mouse shaped pool
at our grandmother’s apartment complex in Orange County. Hardly the beautiful
picturesque scene in Moonlight but it was special just the same. He always
dotted on me. Let me tag along (way less times than I remember I would later
find out) with his friends on adventures that I had no business being at. He
spoke to me so sweetly like I was the most special person in the world to him.
All of the toughness and bravado he had with his friends just melted away when
we sang Aladdin songs together and played like we were sleeping only to poke
the other person in the eye or give a wet willy.
Half way through my childhood my brother and my father
swapped out. During those early years my dad was active duty in the Navy and
was not home much more than a few months out of the year. Years ago I found a
doodle in a notebook from my childhood that said “dad is gone, I love Shany.”
That was it in a nutshell. But when my brother was 19 he left home and I was
left with my father to take back his role in my life.
In high school my dad was my ride. Those were our special
times together, sitting in the car riding around bumpin the latest Hip Hop and
R&B hits on the way to and from my dance lessons. He woke me up every
morning when I ignored my alarm and made sure I got up for school, saying with
a half smile in his voice “nigga you better get up and get ready for school.”
Every birthday card he tirelessly picked was signed with the message to “follow
your dreams, you can do anything, I’m so proud of you.” We went on adventures
together, hiking, ice skating, body boarding, all with the 2000’s soundtrack of
Ja Rule, DMX, 50 cent and Snoop. We’d rap loudly with the windows down and the
warm breeze around us his chain and diamond earring glimmering,, the smell of
his cologne lingering in the air. I felt so proud to be in that car with him,
my dad with his easy charisma and quiet strength.
All those little scenes in Moonlight brought me back to
these moments. Made me remember the sacredness of witnessing Black masculinity
in the world. The sacredness of being loved by and cared for by Black men in a
world that has twisted the image of Black men into an ugly lie. I am grateful to Moonlight for bringing us another version.
The complex version I know so well of tenderness, survival, care and boundless love.
No comments:
Post a Comment