Crafting a Narrative at the Crossroads of Black Masculinity and Queerness

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Mahogany Books Podcast Network,

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your gateway to the world of African-American literature.

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We're proud to present a collection of podcasts dedicated

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to exploring the depth and richness of African-American

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literature.

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Immerse yourself in podcasts like Black Books Matter, the

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Podcast where we learn about the books and major life moments

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that influence today's top writers, or tune in to Real

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Ballads Read, where brothers Jan and Miles invite amazing people

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to talk about the meaningful books in their lives.

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So whether you're a literature enthusiast, an advocate for

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social justice or simply curious about the untold stories that

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Network on your favorite platform and let

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African-American literature ignite your passion.

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Speaker 2: So with that I'm going to get to the first bio.

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I'm going to introduce our conversation host, rashid

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Copeland.

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Rashid is a native of Washington DC.

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He's the author of the book, his author of the book of

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silence, manhood as a pseudoscience and mud jumble

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jubilee, and it is a multiple and it's a multiple recipient of

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the DC Commission of the Arts and Humanities Fellowship Award.

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He's performed and facilitated writing workshops across the

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country and internationally.

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He plays second in the world at the 2015 Individual Poetry Slam

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.

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His work has been featured in online publications such as

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poetorg, split this Rock and the Crab Portrait Review.

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Please welcome Rashid Copeland.

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And a man of the hour.

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This guy's energy is fantastic and I love it.

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Mr Tony Keith Jr is a black American gay poet, spoken word

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artist and hip hop educational leader from Washington DC.

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He is he is author of the YA memoir Inverse how the Boogie

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man Became a Poet.

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Tony's writings have appeared in the International Journal of

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Critical Media Literacy, the Journal of Black Masculinity and

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many others.

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A multi-year fellow of the DC Commission on the Arts and

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Humanities for PhD in Education from George Mason University,

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tony is CEO of Ed MC Academy and lives with his husband, harry

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Christian the third, in his DC hometown.

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Visit him at Tony Keith Jr.

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Please welcome the man of the hour, dr Tony Keith Jr.

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Speaker 3: Oh for Tony, of course, all for Tony there we go

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Family in the building.

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Speaker 4: Yes, yes, hey Ro hey mama, hey cuz, hey yo.

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Speaker 3: All right.

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First off, you are a king for having your husband in the bio.

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I'm glad my partner's not here.

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She would be expecting like a yes, hey, listen.

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So yes, first off, how you doing.

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You're good.

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I am Happy pub day, thank you, thank you.

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Speaker 4: Thank you.

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Thank you, I'm fantastic.

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Speaker 6: Y'all.

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Speaker 4: Y'all, I spent the day listening to the audiobook.

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Y'all might not notice, but I narrated my own audiobook and I

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don't.

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Authors don't get the right to do that opportunity.

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It was the coolest thing to listen to myself read my own

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book about myself, and it for five and a half hours, right,

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anyway.

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So if y'all get a chance, listen to the audiobook, it is a

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.

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It's a dynamite experience.

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Well, at least for me it was, but yeah, I'm.

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So my point is I'm joyful, extremely joyful.

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Speaker 3: Okay, okay.

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So I got a few questions First I'm gonna start like with a real

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lofty one, like so can you just tell us, like what made you

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decide to write this book?

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Speaker 4: What made me decide to write how the boogeyman

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became a poet?

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I'm probably gonna answer a lot of questions by telling stories

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.

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It's just the way that I kind of get to the answer things.

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What happened was this is the real story February 2020,.

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Me and my dear friend y'all know , jason Reynolds we were at a

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University of South Carolina together doing like he was

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talking about his life as an author.

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I was talking about my life as a poet and spoken word artist,

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just sort of like what our different lanes and writing and

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reading and all that speaking was.

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And after every event, because of Jason Reynolds, there was a

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massive book signing right, lots of kids and families lined up

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to get books with Jay, and so I was used to just sitting at the

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tables just like this with him while people are in line and I'm

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just chilling, just talking, and this woman black woman gets

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out of line with little boy.

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I don't know how he was, but these are middle school or high

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school students.

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This little black boy came to me probably was gay, I don't

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know.

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I don't want to assume nothing about a kid, but he says um,

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brian, be nice.

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And so he said where's your book?

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And this is important one, because the question was do you

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have one?

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It was like you know the one.

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You wrote like where is it?

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You know what I mean?

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So there was something about this little boy.

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I'm gonna just and it reminded me of myself.

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He just kind of I don't like called a book out of me, if that

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makes sense.

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So I go back to my hotel room that night and I decide to write

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500 words down of this is the truth, y'all.

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So I was working on my dissertation at the time.

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I thought I was writing a version of my dissertation that

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would be appropriate for younger readers.

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I did, I was I'm gonna write it by.

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I'm interviewing all these people who are poets, and how I

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interviewed them and what my methodology was, and like all

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this, it was ridiculous, right.

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And so the next morning I go downstairs into our hotel and

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I'm at Starbucks with Jay and I show him, I flip my laptop

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around.

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I was like, look, I put 500 words down about a book that I

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want to write.

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And Jason, being Jason, was like okay, tony, you're gonna

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write a book.

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I'm like, yeah, I'm writing a book, and what winds up

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happening?

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And this was February 2020, y'all know, march 2020, covid

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hit, and at that time I was full-time employed.

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I got laid off from my job the year before I was fully PhD, but

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I had no choice but to sit there and write a book.

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And so it came from this little boy who was like I need a book.

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And then it hit me like there are no books available right now

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, at least in the trade market space, that feature stories

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specifically about cisgendered black gay boys who are poets,

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spoken word artists, like written in verse, like there was

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a very unique niche and niche, and so that's that's kind of how

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it came to be.

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I think that I always dreamed of writing a book, but I just

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kind of wasn't sure that I needed to until that moment.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so you mentioned that the Book is

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written in verse.

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For those of us who don't know, can you explain, like, what it

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means to have?

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A book written in verse, and also what it means to have a

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memoir written in verse, because we also don't see too many of

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those.

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Speaker 4: This is great, because this is a question about

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language and vocabulary and you all should know I, I'm a

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trained academic, don't sleep.

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I know all the PhD things, but I do not have an MFA, I don't

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have a master fine arts.

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I'm not someone who took any.

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I think I took maybe one class in like black literature in

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college, but I'm not someone who's like classically trained

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as a writer, right?

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The reason why I say that is I did not know Verse was a form of

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writing until I kind of started doing it, right.

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So what verse means?

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Y'all is essentially each page in this book.

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It's structured like poems.

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So this is.

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It's not like a traditional Book of just, you know, block text,

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justified.

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It's structured like poetry.

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There's stanzas, there's rhyming, there's rhythm, there's

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a literation, but it's a rhythmic story, and so that's

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the first thing.

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So verse, just think about it as a rhythmic way of telling

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stories.

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That's the way that I look at it.

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And in the format it's not static on the page, it moves

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around.

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I think that's for me.

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I know that's a wonderful thing , especially for young readers

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who are intimidated by a lot of text on the page.

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Even adult readers who are might be in tip right.

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I heard some yes, uh-huh, right , but don't, I don't want to

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read 352 pages.

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I'm like y'all relax, it's not like 352 pages, I'm just like

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glass mess.

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It's poetic, it's rhythmic.

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I'll read some of that to you tonight.

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Now, memoir this is another thing about language.

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So this there's autobiographies or biographies, and then there

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are memoirs.

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I did not also know this until I started writing this book

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Autobiography.

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Biography usually is like the life of a person, right, we're

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going from like birth until whenever that person decides

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they want to sort of end that biography, right?

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A?

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memoir keyword, the root word in their memory, right?

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So it's about specific memories , about a specific moment in

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time.

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So in this book, the moment of time I write about the story

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begins in spring 1999 and I'm in my senior year at Duval High

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School in PG County and I'm trying to figure out how am I

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going to get into college.

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It's first of my family to do so, just kind of the way the

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cards fell.

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I'm also pretty sure at this time in my senior year of high

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school, probably before that, that I was gay, although I

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hadn't done nothing.

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It's important.

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Pretty sure I was gay, at least I thought I was, although I

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hadn't done nothing.

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That's important because I'm like I don't know, I don't know

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I'd feel these things I don't know.

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And the third thing was, yeah, and how I sort of discovered

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poetry.

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And so I Write this book in that time period.

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And then it ends and fall 2000, when you sort of see me

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Flourishing, if you will like, on a college campus, like

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actually being a poet and all that kind of stuff.

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So, memoir, short moment in time, this in this case it's

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like two years of my life, right .

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There are, however, flashbacks, so it's not like it reads all.

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Just, you know, they're definitely like flashbacks of

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earlier moments of my childhood and yeah, Cool.

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Speaker 3: So now I have a 17 part question.

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No, this Bring it Just so a two-part question.

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We're talking about language.

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I noticed there's a like theme in this book Surrounding like

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code switching.

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You know me, knowing you now know you don't do too much code

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switching these days.

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But In the book, not like the actual verse itself, which is

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very much like any.

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All know Tony, you read the book, you're gonna hear him

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coming through it.

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But like in the book, it talks about, I guess, code switching.

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And how do you feel like that Lint itself to you navigating

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the space you had to navigate like as a young, you know, gay,

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black, this man.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah Whoo, that is a layered one because

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there's a couple things in there .

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There's code switching of language right, we could talk

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about African-American vernacular English and standard

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English.

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But there's also code switching in terms of my identity right,

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trying to perform as a straight boy, right, but knowing that I'm

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kind of not.

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So there's a bit of a code switching in that, and so it has

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a lot to do with Identity and when it comes out to things like

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language, you know, shout out to DC public schools.

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What the world needs to know is my sister now.

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We started in DC public schools .

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This is important.

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Our whole family from DC.

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We moved a PG in early 90s for reasons which we get into in the

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book, but I started off in schools where my language was

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celebrated.

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Shout out McGonnie elementary.

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Right up here.

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Mcgonnie off of Willow wrote was not McGonnie anymore, it's

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Eagle Academy or whatever it is.

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And you know I was celebrated for my language there.

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I'm all you know.

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Miss Whitley put my stuff up on the thing and had me emceeing

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events at the school.

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The moment we moved to PG County schools.

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I ain't not a PG County schools, or maybe I am, I don't know.

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It was the first time that I actually had a lot of white

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teachers, but usually in English classes.

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And in this book I write about my AP English teacher I just

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call her miss Nylon which, by the way I'm just gonna say in

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this book are lots of wonderful nuggets for different kinds of

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people.

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And so for those of you who know the Golden Girls, you'll

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see, you'll see Nylon, you'll see Devereaux, you'll see is

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Vornack.

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So the Golden Girls made it in the book and so Again, so the

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folks, some folks, get it, okay, um, so I write about how this

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particular teacher.

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She would always say Tony, you, you need to write better, you

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need to speak better, you need to enunciate better.

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I was always told by this particular teacher that I spoke

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wrong and I didn't understand.

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I didn't understand that because I'm like, I speak how I

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speak, I speak how my people speak.

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We say this that day, everybody , mother, father, this is, this

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is normal language.

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I came out with this.

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But I can't write like this in an academic setting because it's

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not considered correct and so how you gonna tell me something

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about my language is incorrect.

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And so what I did in this book, I Decided to flex.

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I was like I'm gonna put all the African-American vernacular

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English I can in this thing, because I know I want black and

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brown readers to know.

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Yo, your language matters, it is real, you are legitimate

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right, like, don't let someone try to scratch that out of you,

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and so, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 3: Said I'll answer that 17 part question.

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I got so many questions, so there is a moment in the book

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where you get to kind of reflecting on On Richard

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Wright's Native son and I thought it was.

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I read the event, I read this why read this one?

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This one just came in today and on my phone I also got where we

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got.

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We got the audio book.

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Speaker 4: I wanted to make sure we gave this the right fidelity

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.

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Speaker 3: So this part especially spoke to me.

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You know so I am, you know so she had male.

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But I think and for those of us who may be in here will also

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say shit, I think we have a lot to learn as far as, like how gay

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black context cisgender, heterosexual.

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Speaker 4: I just want to make sure, right yeah.

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Speaker 3: Um, so I think we assist you at me.

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We got a lot to learn.

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I do think that black gay men are the leaders in challenging

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the I guess tenants of whiteness .

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Speaker 6: So to speak.

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Speaker 3: You know, and I think a lot of us, we deal with the

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same things.

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They just might be animated, different, like.

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So I think we're all navigating the same sort of space.

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Penalties for me might not be as harsh as penalties for you,

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but like we're still navigating that.

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So I thought it was interesting Bringing up bigger Thomas and

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how.

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You know, for those of y'all who don't know the story, very

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complex, you know, I average black man, we real complex.

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We got a lot of love in us, got a lot of violence in us, got a

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lot of sex in us and I just wanted to know like I'm gonna

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put this.

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You know I'm always talking about navigation.

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Like how do you feel as a gay black man?

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Like how do you navigate the space, that young One Having

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somewhat desire for other men but also having somewhat of a

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fear of these men who could very well Punish you, hurt you, yeah

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, yeah.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, wow, she.

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That is Dynamite question, and the first thing that pops in my

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head is actually I think with this not I think, but I know so

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much with this book, you bit man is about the way that I

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navigated that y'all it was.

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It was with the poems.

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That's the truth.

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It's the actual poetry that I would write to myself in the

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middle of the night when I couldn't sleep, when I was

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dealing with oh, my parents just got the voice and pops is

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dealing with drugs.

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You know, we keep moving and I think I'm gay and like just the

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all the wrestling with that stuff in the middle of the night

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.

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As a kid I didn't know what else to do but to just start writing

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in the book.

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Matter of fact, y'all in this book I'm gonna shut this out,

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I'm really excited about this.

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I am you.

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Y'all will see photograph copies of the actual handwritten

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poems I wrote as a kid.

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So for those of you who have diaries or journals or you had a

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huge bit kid, hey, doc, I kept them.

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I kept them and, matter of fact , I'm leading to that story I

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kept them.

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And so here I am in my late 30s writing this book and I'm in

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therapy.

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This is the truth.

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I'm in therapy, I'm in talk space therapy Shout out to my

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therapist, walston, bless that man.

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But I got, although I've been out of therapy for a while, but

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anyway, and I remember, therson says, tony, what seems like a

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lot of this, like, maybe like suppressed anger, suppressed

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fear, suppressed doubt, like a lot of suppressed feelings that

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are showing up in your adult life.

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Now Perhaps you should look at that box of the poems that

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you've been lugging around since you was a kid, right, you've

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been hoarding around probably some mess that you might need to

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dig up, right.

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And so I spent a weekend.

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I went into my closet we was living on Kearney Street and,

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shout, I missed that.

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No, I don't.

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I love my house, I love my house, I love my house, I love

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my house, I love my house.

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Okay, and I opened up that box of poems and I read through all

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of them, yeah, and I cried, I was angry, I ripped some of them

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up.

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It was very like.

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It was a ritualistic, it was like spiritual, it was like, wow

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, like I had been whole.

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This is where I've been holding .

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No wonder, like, no wonder why I keep showing up in my adult

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life.

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I'm cussing out.

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I love my husband cussing out my husband over something that I

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was mad at when I was seven, you know.

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I mean like this sort of projection and the missing, the

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cues and things.

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And so that's how I navigated was, if anything, the poems kept

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me alive, they kept me safe.

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I was able to write about what I was feeling without having to

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let nobody know.

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You know what I mean.

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So I could show up in places and just look, saying just like

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this, and be thinking all kind of things about you, or thinking

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all kind of things about you, and I'm like they don't know

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what I'm thinking.

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I could just stay safe in my thoughts, in my head.

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When I get home I'm like, oh, this shit down, you know what I

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mean yeah.

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Yeah, yeah.

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And so the other thing I'll say is I did not at the time,

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because I was young, right, did not have language, I would not

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have said racism, I would not have said homophobia, I would

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not have used that language.

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I just wasn't, it just didn't feel right, but I would have

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described it in metaphor.

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That was the truth.

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I feel like you know, I'm falling in the mud hole, in the

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middle of the desert, and even the water in the desert.

00:17:35
You know what I mean.

00:17:35
That was actually a really good line.

00:17:37
I gotta write that down Right.

00:17:37
But I would write that and that for me made me feel better and

00:17:42
because it was cryptic enough, meaning nobody could really

00:17:45
understand it.

00:17:45
If I like, left it out, nobody would know what.

00:17:48
Speaker 3: I was talking about Right.

00:17:49
Speaker 4: So there was sort of this yeah, yeah, okay.

00:17:53
Speaker 3: So in line with that, I want to talk about

00:17:55
performance.

00:17:55
Can you expound on the ways I guess performance has helped you

00:18:02
, not only in like, writing and poetry, but just throughout

00:18:08
adolescence, because I feel like there's a sense of for me.

00:18:12
I feel like in some way, shape or form, we all perform.

00:18:15
You know, we're going to perform what we think a man is.

00:18:19
We're going to perform what we think a woman is.

00:18:20
We're going to perform what we think white is straight, like,

00:18:24
what have you?

00:18:24
But I do find that like a lot of times for young black boys,

00:18:29
we perform in a way for a sense of like, we perform for safety,

00:18:35
if that makes sense.

00:18:36
You know, like and so like.

00:18:38
There's the litmus of all.

00:18:39
Right, you supposed to be this hyper masculine guy up here.

00:18:41
Anybody else again?

00:18:43
Gay, straight, how have you?

00:18:44
If you don't perform that way, you will be penalized for

00:18:49
hierarchy.

00:18:49
Yeah, definitely.

00:18:50
So just could you expand on like how performance has kind of

00:18:56
like been a part of your?

00:18:58
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely.

00:18:59
That's a great question.

00:18:59
She didn't.

00:19:00
The first thing I think about is in this book I actually write

00:19:03
about I'm going to talk about the black church.

00:19:04
In this book I write about how in high school and even I think

00:19:08
it's probably early middle school my friends Evan and

00:19:10
Brandy sort of just not convinced me, but in the book I

00:19:15
call it good luck church.

00:19:15
I don't even give the name of the church away, but it's anyway

00:19:18
so like a mega church now.

00:19:19
It's a mega church now.

00:19:23
But, it's huge, but I was, I was , I was in the youth choir and I

00:19:29
was singing.

00:19:29
I would sing.

00:19:30
Yes, Brian, I used to go to church and sing in the choir.

00:19:33
Oh, what time is it?

00:19:34
We good, we're fine, and what I'll say is that's the first

00:19:39
thing that I'll say is I understood performance in a

00:19:42
spiritual way, so like being able to sing and like belt out

00:19:48
loud and like in, like this atmosphere where everybody's

00:19:51
like in praise and worship and there's like this feeling of God

00:19:54
.

00:19:54
That's the only way I can describe it.

00:19:55
There's a feeling like I was a kid up on the.

00:19:57
I was up there shouting, like I was, I was in it, like I was.

00:20:00
Oh, yes, I was, I was in it and in some of that probably I

00:20:03
would even argue was a performance I saw other people

00:20:05
around me.

00:20:05
This is what you're doing and I'm going to do the same kind of

00:20:08
thing too, but there was a release of emotional energy when

00:20:12
I sang right.

00:20:14
So being able to just like get that out to weep to well, to

00:20:18
sing, to like something about getting it out.

00:20:20
And then the response from the audience, or in that case, the

00:20:23
congregation, makes me think so much about call and response.

00:20:27
Shout out to the black church.

00:20:28
Also, when you think about a really good MC who can move a

00:20:31
crowd, call and response is an important part of it.

00:20:34
And so for me, once I started getting on stage and performing

00:20:37
poems and receiving this positive response from audience,

00:20:41
my confidence began to grow Right.

00:20:43
I began to like become very comfortable with my voice on the

00:20:46
mic.

00:20:46
The more comfortable I became with my voice on the mic, the

00:20:48
more comfortable I became with my voice on the page Right.

00:20:50
And so there was sort of this, like my other favorite cousin,

00:20:55
it was like an awakening of my knowledge of self, of my voice,

00:20:58
of what poetry could actually do .

00:21:00
So I have this ability to like speak words that like land on

00:21:06
people you know what I mean and have them feel some kind of way

00:21:09
right.

00:21:09
A lot of, especially MCs, might believe in this idea that we

00:21:12
have like vibrations right.

00:21:13
That Coke you know, right, shoot out of our mouth right,

00:21:16
and it lands on the audience and it can make them, you know, in

00:21:18
the same thing with a preacher right, right, a preacher's up

00:21:21
there hooping and hollering and it's making people feel that way

00:21:23
.

00:21:23
I'm like, ah, if I can feel that same way when I'm on stage

00:21:27
and if I can feel that same way while I'm writing, then that

00:21:29
means there's God presence in this work.

00:21:32
Speaker 3: Right, right, okay, okay, how about saying let's, we

00:21:35
can clap for that y'all we can clap?

00:21:38
Speaker 4: Y'all should see my mother's face right now.

00:21:39
She said all right.

00:21:41
She said, oh okay, all right, okay.

00:21:45
Speaker 3: He be reading.

00:21:46
I get it.

00:21:47
So about that.

00:21:48
Okay.

00:21:49
So in the lines of performance, so like for this book, and I'm

00:21:53
trying my best to like ask these questions in a very informed

00:21:57
way without spoiling the book for y'all there are two separate

00:22:01
moments in the book in regards to performance.

00:22:04
There's this more moment where you like first attempt to

00:22:09
compete in slams, oh whoo.

00:22:11
And then there's like the dichotomy of that is the other

00:22:15
right and could you speak to like.

00:22:17
So the way I looked at it, you know, putting on my like English

00:22:21
lit hat, I thought of it as the dichotomy between, like the how

00:22:28
performance of masculinity yourself, can one have you

00:22:34
judged very harshly, without any sort of like true context of

00:22:40
who you are, and then also can have you received and affirmed,

00:22:45
on the other hand, Wow, I did not make that connection.

00:22:51
Speaker 4: She put that this is why he's here, right.

00:22:53
Speaker 3: Right and y'all know y'all being like English

00:22:55
literature and your teacher be trying to like put all this

00:22:57
extra stuff on it and then you find out like no, that was just

00:23:00
a bird that was it.

00:23:02
And nothing to do with slavery, like it was just a bird.

00:23:05
That's how my mind be going.

00:23:07
But like, again, you know, when you write you might not know,

00:23:11
you know, I think you know, we thought my black church, no

00:23:14
intercessory prayer.

00:23:15
They say you know you don't know what's coming out your

00:23:17
mouth, but like you know, spirit knows.

00:23:19
So I just wanted to, I guess, check it like.

00:23:24
Speaker 4: Yeah, I, yeah, I can.

00:23:25
That's what a great link.

00:23:26
I didn't think about it that way.

00:23:27
All the layers shout out to writing a book in metaphors and

00:23:30
a poet reading a book.

00:23:31
Speaker 3: Okay that makes sense .

00:23:32
Speaker 4: That's what it'd be.

00:23:33
So what I'm thinking about is how.

00:23:36
What I wanted to at least demonstrate in that book was a

00:23:38
couple of things.

00:23:39
The first was that I believe that there are poems that are

00:23:44
that are, I think, sometimes, if you are a poet, that are just

00:23:46
for you, right, like some of them just need to just stay with

00:23:50
you.

00:23:50
They don't necessarily belong out in the world, although

00:23:54
there's always somebody who needs to hear what you have to

00:23:56
say.

00:23:56
So it's like this weird line where it's like well, I don't

00:23:59
want to be too vulnerable, but I'll, you know, and so like,

00:24:01
even in this book, like choosing which poems include was an act

00:24:04
of vulnerability, right, which, if you think about it, is very

00:24:08
antithetical, which is such an unnecessary word to use right

00:24:10
now to like traditional masculinity right To be

00:24:11
vulnerable as a black man is not something to do.

00:24:14
So punks do it's a faggots do.

00:24:16
It's sorry, my language, that's just the language of the books,

00:24:18
but that's what you know, it's done, and so you know.

00:24:20
For me it was a matter of like yo, if I could be very

00:24:23
vulnerable.

00:24:23
The most vulnerable place that I could be, for me was an open

00:24:27
mic man.

00:24:27
It was interesting.

00:24:28
Well, not no, it was actually a slam.

00:24:29
So in this book I make a distinction between poetry,

00:24:32
slams and open mics, and I think it is an important distinction,

00:24:35
only especially for educators who are doing these things with

00:24:37
your students.

00:24:37
Traditionally, a slam is a competition.

00:24:40
It's usually it's competitive.

00:24:41
There's judges, there's scores.

00:24:43
It can look in a bunch of different ways.

00:24:44
But in this book I write about how I go to this slam at Morgan

00:24:47
State University and I didn't know anything about a slam, I

00:24:50
just know I had a poem that I wanted to get off my chest.

00:24:51
It was personal.

00:24:52
And in the book I write about how there was rules and it was

00:24:56
like round one three minute poem .

00:24:58
Round two two minute poem, round three.

00:24:59
I was like what I don't have all of this.

00:25:03
Right, I am not prepared and I lose.

00:25:06
Horribly bad.

00:25:07
And then I discover about this open mic that was taking place

00:25:11
at Towson University called Ebony Lounge, hosted by somebody

00:25:15
named Rebecca Dupont, who might be in this building.

00:25:17
Speaker 3: I thought I saw Rebecca Dupont's site in here.

00:25:20
Speaker 4: Whose name might show up in that book too At Ebony

00:25:22
Lounge, and I learned that, oh, with an open mic, this is the

00:25:25
space where, like, wait a minute , everybody here is here to

00:25:28
share something.

00:25:28
Everybody's here going to snap for you, going to applaud for

00:25:31
you, going to care for you, ideally, because not?

00:25:34
All the types of people are mean.

00:25:35
But that's when I sort of learned the conditions in which

00:25:38
both of these things sort of work.

00:25:39
And I'm like yo, I don't want to be competing, I don't want to

00:25:43
compete, I just want to perform , and I think that's what I

00:25:46
learned sort of in that process, like my poems ain't for this

00:25:49
particular thing.

00:25:50
I like it over here.

00:25:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I feel like , listen, I don't.

00:25:53
I mean I'm slam, though, and this is also, by the way 2015,

00:25:56
2014, second like world slam champion by the way, but again,

00:26:01
though, in the world, like in the world, the whole world.

00:26:05
Speaker 4: I ain't competing against him.

00:26:07
Speaker 3: But with that though, to Tony's point, I done got up

00:26:10
there and done some real vulnerable poems about my mama

00:26:13
grandmother, yes, you have.

00:26:14
I think it'd be like two out of 10.

00:26:16
Yeah, did you not feel that, my mama?

00:26:20
So I get.

00:26:21
I definitely understand that there's a space for it.

00:26:25
Some spaces are just not ready for you know, until you even

00:26:30
like, dig into that metaphor, like some spaces, just don't

00:26:33
know how to receive it.

00:26:34
Ain't that the poems weren't worthy?

00:26:37
Speaker 6: It's just this, ain't the space for.

00:26:39
Speaker 4: Yes, that's what it is.

00:26:40
Speaker 3: And I think a lot of that book, a lot of this book

00:26:43
speaks to that that, like the way you had to navigate in

00:26:46
certain spaces, it's like it's unfortunate that people couldn't

00:26:51
just accept that you couldn't be safe in these spaces.

00:26:54
But once you got to the right spaces, things was clear.

00:26:59
It was like oh, you know, I'm much changed, I'm still myself,

00:27:02
but it's like now my environment allows me to blossom.

00:27:05
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, she's shut up to you, bro, yeah.

00:27:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know be moderating sometimes.

00:27:11
Ok, so do we want to get into some reading?

00:27:15
Speaker 4: Yeah, we'll hear a little bit.

00:27:16
Y'all want to hear some of these bars.

00:27:19
All right, thank you.

00:27:20
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you, hey doc.

00:27:22
Speaker 4: Put this down.

00:27:23
I'm very excited about this, by the way.

00:27:24
She just such an incredible moderator, and so I've just

00:27:28
decided that whenever I do these book talks I'm just going to

00:27:31
start at the beginning, just because it feels right.

00:27:32
I just feel like y'all should just know what y'all are walking

00:27:35
into, and people often say that usually the first page is

00:27:37
usually what kind of grabs readers.

00:27:39
So all right, here we go.

00:27:42
So this is Spring 1999.

00:27:45
And I should also mention the way this book is written.

00:27:49
By the way, it's not necessarily chapters, but there

00:27:51
are titles.

00:27:52
The titles kind of serve as like transitions, right, and so

00:27:56
I might tell you I'm about to read three chapters, but it's

00:27:58
really just kind of three parts of the story.

00:27:59
Yeah, so there are no chapters, it's not anyway.

00:28:04
I came out in the world like this bright and burning, a

00:28:10
brilliant little black star, weighing every bit of seven

00:28:13
pounds, seven ounces, measuring 19 and a half inches long,

00:28:17
cessarion, cut right through Marcenter, smack a dab in the

00:28:21
middle of hot July, on the 17th day in the year 1981.

00:28:25
I was carefully carved fresh from her flesh at a hospital on

00:28:29
a military base in Freehold, new Jersey, where pop was training

00:28:33
to be an airman.

00:28:33
Basic.

00:28:34
Same way, same place, same space, where my sister Tamu was

00:28:38
born, just 17 months before my whole body arrived on fire,

00:28:43
flaming from the warmth of my mother's womb.

00:28:45
Medical records say I was an infant prone to ear infections

00:28:48
that raised my internal temperature well beyond a

00:28:51
boiling fever.

00:28:52
I was three when I bubbled over .

00:28:54
102.7 degrees Fahrenheit made me tug at my lobes a little too

00:28:58
hard for Marse Comfort.

00:28:59
Doctors put some tubes in there to help cool down the noise.

00:29:03
They fell out a few months later while I was dancing.

00:29:06
Circles around my shadow wound up scarring some tissue on my

00:29:09
eardrums.

00:29:10
Now, y'all, I be trippin' on vertigo.

00:29:12
It's like the world be spinning around if I climb far too high

00:29:15
and try to look too straight up toward the sky or stair too deep

00:29:19
down beneath the Earth's belly.

00:29:22
I was in eighth grade when the flames brought me scarlet fever.

00:29:24
Remember that Spread these sensitive-ass blood red bumps

00:29:28
across my entire body, causing some pain to rise up in the

00:29:32
middle of my chest.

00:29:32
Mom, remember the infection.

00:29:35
Wait a minute.

00:29:35
Emergency room doctors said.

00:29:36
Mom brought me in just a few minutes before the infection

00:29:40
punched its way into the second layer of my beating heart.

00:29:42
Legend has it my being here was a close call too.

00:29:46
Apparently, mom 23, pregnant unplanned with me drove a

00:29:51
four-door powder gray Dodge diplomat with tires that

00:29:55
foolishly assumed the tread on the rubber wheel.

00:29:58
I'm so excited because she's over here like no.

00:30:00
Apparently, mom 23, pregnant unplanned with me drove a

00:30:05
four-door powder gray Dodge diplomat with tires that

00:30:09
foolishly assumed the tread on their rubber wheels were deep

00:30:12
enough to skate slick on smooth black ice during cold winter

00:30:16
Round rubber dummies didn't test themselves.

00:30:18
First Crash Me and mom us.

00:30:21
We slid like lava on concrete water.

00:30:23
Her belly becomes an inflated safety airbag, bracing all my

00:30:27
bouncing.

00:30:27
We both survived unscathed, save for the 23 railroad track

00:30:32
stitches mom had stapled across her forehead.

00:30:34
I remain submerged, baked golden brown, birthed by

00:30:38
scalding summer.

00:30:39
Mom always tells the story of our accident whenever she's

00:30:42
explaining to other people why I am the way I am.

00:30:45
Her baby, funny, curious, clever, smiling, singing,

00:30:51
dancing, joyful, carefree, bright, showy, a ball of

00:30:55
colorful energy making life fun for us all.

00:30:58
She'll say to them while looking at me something must

00:31:01
have happened to him, because that boy ain't been right since.

00:31:04
And then she'll chuckle with a sweet laugh.

00:31:07
That don't hurt.

00:31:07
Here we go, unlike last year when I turned 16 and pop echoed

00:31:14
Ma's tale with a gallon of sour sugar.

00:31:16
That still stings me in some place.

00:31:18
I don't yet have the language for For real.

00:31:21
For real, I'm far too afraid to discover what it might actually

00:31:24
mean, because whenever I think about what my father actually

00:31:27
said, the boogeyman creeps out from some dark corner in my

00:31:30
bedroom closet and I can't get any sleep at night.

00:31:32
Title is pop had just gotten out of rehab again.

00:31:37
He called to wish me happy birthday After confirming that I

00:31:41
was indeed being a good boy by reading my Bible I was not and

00:31:45
praying for my salvation every day.

00:31:47
I was not.

00:31:48
He goes 1 Corinthians 2.9 says eyes have not seen, nor ears

00:31:53
have heard, nor has it into the heart of man the things which

00:31:56
God has prepared for you.

00:31:57
I'm proud of you, son, but as a baby you cry so daggone much I

00:32:01
thought you were gonna grow up to be a sissy or something.

00:32:03
As if something disguised what he actually said, as if there

00:32:09
was probable cause for concern about my safety, as if I'm not

00:32:13
mirror to his namesake.

00:32:14
As if there was reason to question my capacity to survive

00:32:19
an attack from the source of saline.

00:32:20
I tasted on tears dripping from the tip of my tiny toddler

00:32:24
tongue, as if my center was too vulnerable and so I had to curl

00:32:29
up into myself for comfort, as if all my screaming and

00:32:32
hollering triggered some insecurity he had about my

00:32:35
density, as if there was a layer of flesh and spirit I left

00:32:39
lingering inside of mom fifteen summers ago, as if no tissue was

00:32:43
attached to vein, blood, bone, muscle, fat or skin and

00:32:47
therefore I was too soft and too sticky to withstand whatever

00:32:52
hard stuff black men must make light of in order to feel strong

00:32:56
enough to hold on to and hold up themselves.

00:32:58
As if there was trivial possibility of my power to

00:33:02
protect my own peace during times of war.

00:33:04
As if I entered my physical existence with an unarmed and

00:33:09
untrained military that was ill equipped and unprepared to

00:33:13
battle beasts that prey on the bodies of little black boys who

00:33:16
are unafraid to express how they really feel on the inside.

00:33:21
I'm gonna do one more.

00:33:22
I don't know how much time we got.

00:33:23
I'm in my bag and I'll give you a minute.

00:33:25
Keep going and let my parents tell it.

00:33:31
And let my parents tell it.

00:33:38
I came out curious, before crying A queer kid full of

00:33:41
questions, complete with some kind of knowledge embedded

00:33:44
inside the brain, holding up my big ass.

00:33:46
Black head, I had a curved ledge attached to the back of my

00:33:51
skull that pop former jock would wrap his hands around and

00:33:55
hold like a football, before pretending to launch me into the

00:33:58
air and not swirl around the atmosphere.

00:34:01
Giggling at my father's gentle touch, ma tried smoothing out my

00:34:04
knowledge about what her soft hands Same one.

00:34:07
She used to grease pops hair as a teenager and twirl batons

00:34:10
between her major at fingers at their homecoming parades.

00:34:13
She mushed and mash what I came out knowing into more

00:34:16
manageable size into my body, grew into itself.

00:34:19
My parents called the back of my head a puck.

00:34:21
I have no idea why they chose this word, as there was never a

00:34:26
time in our lives together when hockey was a part of any

00:34:29
discussion.

00:34:30
As a kid I only knew a puck to be some black round thing that

00:34:36
skates smooth on slick ice and that people on two sides of a

00:34:40
thing with razor blade feet and long curved sticks love to beat

00:34:44
around.

00:34:45
Until the puck submits to being captured in a net disguise as a

00:34:48
protected space for its safety, and this happens so much that

00:34:53
it's only a matter of time before one side is crowned

00:34:55
Victor and the puck is exposed for all that.

00:34:58
It really is A piece of black property destined to be locked

00:35:02
and stacked up inside of a cage in the dark, with the rest of

00:35:06
the pucks and all their knowledge, until the next game

00:35:08
time, when they will again inspire some fight about them

00:35:12
between people on two sides of a thing, who will be cloaked and

00:35:15
armor and will ignore how badly and beaten the puck has been and

00:35:19
how naked and cold has been for what feels like centuries,

00:35:22
until some black, white striped skin person with authority blows

00:35:26
a whistle before the brawl begins.

00:35:30
I'm going to read this last one for y'all.

00:35:31
Y'all, all right, I got what?

00:35:35
Four more minutes?

00:35:36
Oh, I'll do this last little chapter.

00:35:38
Right about it.

00:35:38
Oh, this little Tony, this little, my little teeth.

00:35:40
Okay, last one.

00:35:42
I want to read this one in particular because I want to

00:35:44
make sure that you understand the connection to hip hop.

00:35:46
I get them to be 43 years old this year and hip hop is at

00:35:48
least 50 years old.

00:35:49
I'm going to write a hip hop in it, hi, shevon.

00:35:51
I want to write a hip hop in it , and so I titled this chapter

00:35:54
my Knowledge of Self.

00:35:54
For those who need to know the fifth element of hip hop

00:35:57
knowledge of self.

00:35:57
The more you know about who you are, the more powerful you can

00:35:59
show up in the world, and so I titled that this way on purpose.

00:36:03
My knowledge of self, the history of who I am, explains

00:36:06
how I came to be a 17 year old senior at Duval High, where I

00:36:10
mascot.

00:36:11
The Bengal Tiger is the largest living cat species, although I

00:36:15
can barely stretch my body out from beyond this five foot four

00:36:18
inch brown border.

00:36:19
Duval High swallows a corner block of a busy intersection in

00:36:23
Lanham, merlin and Prince George's County, pg, greenland,

00:36:27
partially circling around the first ring suburbs of the

00:36:29
diamond shaped District of Columbia.

00:36:30
For a furrow, I don't think I'm built like most of the other

00:36:34
black boys here.

00:36:34
I weigh in at about 120 pounds, soaking wet.

00:36:37
With all my clothes on.

00:36:38
I don't feel like my shoulders are strong enough to stand on,

00:36:42
nor can I puff my chest out enough to appear as large as I

00:36:45
believe I am.

00:36:45
Monk keeps saying I should be enrolled in a weight on program

00:36:49
with the chuckle that slings a different tune out of she

00:36:52
shopping in department stores specializing in clothes for plus

00:36:55
size women, where it is.

00:36:57
I was a baby who couldn't drink directly from my mother's breast

00:36:59
, nor could I stomach milk process.

00:37:01
Oh, stomach process milk that was squeezed from some strange

00:37:05
cows, others so liquefied soybeans or my soul source of

00:37:09
survival until I could chew and swallow solid foods without

00:37:12
needing any synthetic assistance .

00:37:13
Now the doctor says my calcium is too low and that's apparently

00:37:17
why my fingernails which I can't stop chewing around that,

00:37:20
all these dark brown streaks streaking their ways across them

00:37:22
, and that's why, in seventh grade, my dentist told my mother

00:37:26
my state of smiling would eventually need some

00:37:28
straightening out.

00:37:28
I entered high school in 1995 as a thin ass, black boy with

00:37:33
crooked teeth barred up in stainless steel wires and

00:37:36
colored rubber bands and my mother's medical insurance

00:37:38
didn't cover.

00:37:38
Got them taken off junior year.

00:37:41
Now every tooth is finally sitting still in its right row,

00:37:44
shining from its own designated space inside my mouth.

00:37:46
Accidentally dropped my expensive ascertainer in a trash

00:37:50
can at McDonald's.

00:37:51
We can't afford to pay for another one.

00:37:53
Now my bottom jaw is starting to stretch out farther than the

00:37:56
top one does.

00:37:59
My face can't decide on what shade of its own natural color

00:38:01
these acne spots to show up, as I am sweet and stale skin,

00:38:05
chocolate chip cookie, black boy in the mirror Plus my vision

00:38:08
got blurry during sophomore year , had to join the rest of my

00:38:11
family and wearing prescription eyeglasses, so I can't tell what

00:38:14
I really look like while peering through medicated lenses

00:38:17
that layer over all the things I don't always love about myself

00:38:20
and ain't enough base and trouble flowing through the

00:38:23
sound waves of my weak voice.

00:38:25
I can't thump hard enough to vibrate skyscrapers.

00:38:27
I can't create a strong enough cocoon around myself to feel

00:38:31
secure about my safety.

00:38:32
When I'm around certain boys, I never speak up.

00:38:35
When I know that some of them be speaking down to me, those

00:38:38
slick and sly, shy moments when they quietly slither the words

00:38:42
soft out of their sneaky, greasy mouths.

00:38:44
Or they'll call me weak as a way to describe my peculiarly

00:38:47
small size, my significantly troubling short stature.

00:38:50
This always causes me to question my own strength.

00:38:54
To be clear, I've been called skinny by a whole lot of

00:38:56
different people, most of whom I know love me, like Ma, who

00:39:00
always says I am the way that I am because I eat like a bird.

00:39:02
Truth is, I think my appetites for Ma's cooking and my anxiety

00:39:07
about being bullied be throwing hip hop parties together in the

00:39:09
basement of my stomach, setting the roof on fire.

00:39:11
They never ask for water either .

00:39:14
They just prefer to let me burn , burn, burn.

00:39:17
I don't be that hungry for real .

00:39:18
For real, I've also been called a bitch and a punk and a pussy

00:39:22
and a faggot far more than a few times over the years, to ignore

00:39:25
how often I see the boogeyman lurking around.

00:39:27
Some of these boys at Duval High the ones I try to avoid like

00:39:30
Tehran who, in fifth grade, picked me last to be on this

00:39:33
basketball team at recess.

00:39:34
He was a popular Tawny giant with quick and aggressive moves,

00:39:38
and all of us knew that he hogged the ball longer than

00:39:40
anyone else should.

00:39:41
Yet none of us ever question his power to do so.

00:39:43
I'm surprised on the first play of the game when he passed me

00:39:47
the bumpy orange rock and yelled out don't fuck this up, tony.

00:39:49
I blink, I catch, I stop breathing.

00:39:53
No one taught me how to play basketball, know what rules to

00:39:56
follow, and so, with both hands, palm pressed against this

00:40:00
golden sphere of masculinity, I bounce the thing on the ground,

00:40:03
pivoting my whole body toward the hoop, and step out on both

00:40:06
my left and right feet, double dribble cuts through the air and

00:40:12
slice my wobbling legs in half.

00:40:14
I tripped over myself and fell to my knees, landed on my back

00:40:18
and rolled on my right side.

00:40:18
The black top rub the thin burn on my elbow.

00:40:21
The impact didn't hurt as much as saying everyone else pointing

00:40:25
their fingers directly at my sad little brown face, laughing

00:40:28
at how funny of a man I was going to be.

00:40:29
To make matters worse, tehran shadowed over my shine and

00:40:33
screamed to my soul what the hell was that, tony?

00:40:36
You can't do stupid shit like that.

00:40:38
Go sit your gay ass down somewhere.

00:40:39
Then he pushed both of his fists into my chest using a

00:40:44
force lighter than gravity, disrupting my equilibrium, and

00:40:47
so I fall again, only this time I land on my butt and slide

00:40:51
backwards across the gravel, tearing more holes and my gently

00:40:54
used wardrobe.

00:40:54
Stop it.

00:40:55
Tehran, screamed out.

00:40:57
Shavon, one of my classmates who I think also knew something

00:41:00
about playground bullies.

00:41:01
She ran over to me with her long arms extended, publicly

00:41:05
acknowledging my humanity, and with her sweet hands help hoist

00:41:08
me back up vertically.

00:41:09
I could only look at the stitches loosening across the

00:41:12
top of my off brand sneakers as I sequestered myself to sit on

00:41:15
the sidelines where all the girls were safer.

00:41:17
I didn't cry on the outside as I watched some of those girls

00:41:21
cheer for their favorite playground bully boyfriends the

00:41:23
ones who told me I got a cage bird chest made of bouncy rubber

00:41:27
and butter fingers attached to the ends of my flimsy bent wrist

00:41:30
.

00:41:30
They say these are the reasons why I can't catch, pitch or run

00:41:34
for shit.

00:41:34
Thank y'all, thank y'all, we good.

00:41:46
Sorry, I know there's time for questions and stuff, but you're

00:41:48
all right, so please read the book.

00:41:49
By the way, get the audio book.

00:41:50
That sounds like that.

00:41:51
It's like that.

00:41:52
Speaker 2: That was fantastic y'all.

00:41:54
Please, please, please, another round for Dr Tony Keith.

00:41:57
Thank you.

00:41:58
Speaker 4: Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you

00:41:59
, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank

00:42:01
you, thanks, thank you.

00:42:07
Speaker 2: An incredible conversation.

00:42:08
Brother Rishi, you're definitely doing your thing, but

00:42:11
we definitely want to make sure we open it up for audience Q&A

00:42:15
for the last 10 minutes before we get things set up for the

00:42:20
author signing.

00:42:20
So if anyone is interested in asking a question, please line

00:42:26
up on the left here I will hold the mic.

00:42:30
Come on down.

00:42:35
Come on down, I line okay, there we go.

00:42:38
Speaker 4: This is Louise.

00:42:41
Speaker 6: Capitos.

00:42:42
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

00:42:43
Come on Okay.

00:42:45
I'm guessing people have, oh, okay.

00:42:50
Speaker 4: Did you have to get a line, cousin?

00:42:51
Hi doc, Congratulations first of all.

00:42:55
I follow you on Instagram.

00:42:57
Oh my gosh, I'm sorry, y'all Dancey books, right?

00:43:00
Oh, I love you, okay, okay hi.

00:43:03
Speaker 7: I love you more.

00:43:03
You're so cute.

00:43:07
I love the conversation that you had about performance and I

00:43:11
was curious about, as you said, the kind of the duality between

00:43:16
performance and authenticity, and I was also wondering, I

00:43:20
guess, how you communicate your true self when you're both

00:43:27
performing as well as your writing, and how do you choose

00:43:30
what to hold to yourself as well as what to share with the world

00:43:35
.

00:43:36
Speaker 4: Wow, beautiful question.

00:43:37
Thank you so much.

00:43:37
The first thing that pops in my head in terms of is I always

00:43:44
tell folks that if you see me perform in my eyes close, I have

00:43:48
transcended, Like I'm in a different sort of space, right?

00:43:51
So for me, poetry that's shared before is very spiritual, and

00:43:54
so I think about that so much in terms of, like, you know, what

00:43:58
I want to give of myself is a spiritual act, and so, like I

00:44:01
can't let out too much, right, and you also can't give all that

00:44:04
energy out to a whole lot of people, and so, like, I protect

00:44:07
my peace in that regard.

00:44:08
And so I think, when it comes to performance, again, it's a

00:44:11
matter of like, wait a minute, this is a spiritual act.

00:44:13
This isn't so much about entertainment.

00:44:15
And even when writing this book yeah, books are for

00:44:18
entertainment, but I wanted folks to sort of experience a

00:44:20
spiritual kind of thing, right, and hopefully I mean whatever

00:44:23
that may, and I'm not talking about Christianity, right I mean

00:44:25
like something in your gut does a thing.

00:44:28
Your heart turns, it makes you think of something you might

00:44:30
wonder, you might dream, but I wanted it to have that

00:44:32
particular effect.

00:44:33
And so, when it came to writing how the Boogeyman became a poet.

00:44:36
I only included things that kind of answered that question

00:44:39
of like, how did the Boogeyman become a poet?

00:44:41
There's so much stuff that I wanted to include that didn't

00:44:43
necessarily fit with that.

00:44:44
I mentioned this story when I was in the Planet Word.

00:44:47
But my family, you know, we used to host our family unions

00:44:50
at Kennevark Aquatic Gardens, Nofish, Shaddeenwood, Coral

00:44:54
Street and okay, and they were so much fun and I wrote a whole

00:44:59
chapter about our family unions, y'all like how dope they were.

00:45:02
And my editor was like with Tony, how does that relate to

00:45:04
how the Boogeyman became a poet?

00:45:06
You know what I mean.

00:45:07
Like this is great, I'm Chuck Brown, yeah, but like why does

00:45:12
this matter, you know?

00:45:13
And so that's what it kind of came down to was like including

00:45:16
for the readers things that will connect to the title, that will

00:45:19
connect them to the whole purpose of the book, the

00:45:22
spiritual purpose of the book.

00:45:23
Again, I didn't necessarily write this for your

00:45:25
entertainment.

00:45:25
I had to process this.

00:45:27
You know I wrote this book almost as an approach to writing

00:45:31
an essay.

00:45:31
It was more how did the Boogeyman become a poet?

00:45:34
Like, how did I become someone so unafraid to be who I am in

00:45:37
public.

00:45:38
How did I get there?

00:45:39
So I didn't know until I was halfway through this book what

00:45:42
the Boogeyman metaphor was, even about.

00:45:43
Right, yeah, Thank you for that .

00:45:49
All right.

00:45:55
Speaker 2: Next question.

00:45:57
Speaker 4: Hello, hi, louise, hi , so even when you're a former

00:46:00
student, show up.

00:46:00
It's a cool thing.

00:46:01
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's great, okay.

00:46:02
So apparently you work in an education field back then.

00:46:06
So I was just wondering it's like being this vulnerable and

00:46:12
seeing people in education from different walks of life and I'm

00:46:16
just wondering about like how I guess you talked about relating

00:46:22
to people like that so I'm just like how can I try to say people

00:46:27
from different walks of life just find this common ground

00:46:31
connection?

00:46:32
Speaker 4: That's a great question, louise, and the first

00:46:34
thing that I think about is I can't think of one teenager that

00:46:38
is not wrestling with some aspect of their identity, right,

00:46:41
whether it's their gender, their race, their culture, their

00:46:43
whatever.

00:46:44
But there's sort of some figuring it out moment, and so,

00:46:47
for me, when I thought about writing this book, I really

00:46:48
thought about any person who's trying to figure something out

00:46:53
about themselves being able to read what's your Boogeyperson?

00:46:56
Who's your Boogeyperson?

00:46:57
Who are the Boogey?

00:46:58
What are the things that are haunting you and you're being

00:47:00
your great?

00:47:00
If you haven't.

00:47:01
I don't want to assume everybody got a Boogeyperson, but I know

00:47:05
for sure I wasn't free until I wrote this book right, and so

00:47:07
well, I'm still not fully free, but anyway.

00:47:09
But there's a freedom that exists in me because I wrote

00:47:12
this book and so I think that I wanted young people and even

00:47:15
adults to experience that too, which is why I wrote it in verse

00:47:19
, which is why I included the stories that I did, which is why

00:47:21
I wrote it in such a way.

00:47:23
I was like, yeah, I want young people and adults to just find

00:47:26
themselves in this.

00:47:27
My editor is a slightly younger , white, straight man and he

00:47:33
gets this book right, and that's what I meant by that, because

00:47:36
he also is dealing with his own stuff too.

00:47:37
So I think it comes down to we all got stuff, louise, right,

00:47:41
yeah, right about it, awesome, fantastic.

00:47:44
Speaker 2: Next question.

00:47:46
Speaker 6: Hi, Tony, Hi, my question to you today is how did

00:47:51
your early poverty, racism and homophobia affect your mental

00:47:56
health?

00:47:58
Speaker 4: Yes, sister, that is that, is it?

00:48:01
So the first thing that I'll tell you is you know what it did

00:48:03
, Because I have this language now.

00:48:05
I internalized racism, I internalized homophobia, I

00:48:11
internalized a poverty mindset I believe that being too black

00:48:14
was bad.

00:48:15
So I co-twitch my language.

00:48:17
Right, I began to adjust and perform so that I could act a

00:48:20
certain way in school and around teachers.

00:48:22
Right, I began to adjust the way that I could perform so I

00:48:25
can appear straight.

00:48:25
Right, and it was a matter of adjusting my performance because

00:48:29
I began to internalize, I began to like it's hate, it's, you

00:48:32
know, it's a hate, and I thought that there was an actual, a

00:48:35
hierarchy of race and I was on the lower end.

00:48:38
Right, I thought that there was a hierarchy of sexuality and I

00:48:41
was on the lower end.

00:48:43
The same thing about like and again, I want to be clear,

00:48:45
because I want to make sure.

00:48:45
I think the language probably is just poor, not poverty,

00:48:48
because, again, we always have.

00:48:49
We needed a shout out to my you're amazing woman.

00:48:51
Shout out to my mother I'll clap for my mom.

00:48:55
We always had what we needed, and I do know that there are

00:48:58
people who like experience, like abject poverty.

00:49:00
I just want to be clear, like in terms of language, but I do

00:49:02
know what it's like to not have right, so I grew up with that,

00:49:06
believing that I'm someone who's probably never going to have

00:49:08
right.

00:49:09
So that's how it affected my mental health is I internalize

00:49:11
all these things?

00:49:11
And again, I don't know if you were here, but shout out to my

00:49:13
therapist, who helped me unpack the poems and helped me realize

00:49:16
where I was hiding that phobia, awesome.

00:49:22
Speaker 2: We have one last question.

00:49:24
Speaker 4: Dr recently doctored.

00:49:28
Speaker 6: Doctor, I have always admired your work and it has

00:49:34
been amazing.

00:49:35
I'm going to go back to something about coast, obviously

00:49:38
, because that's what I studied.

00:49:38
You know I would hey AVG.

00:49:40
I studied linguistics, I studied African American language and

00:49:44
I'm always just fascinated by Tony.

00:49:45
It's just amazing.

00:49:46
So my question is because there are some of us who aren't free

00:49:51
right, who haven't experienced, so we still code, switch, right.

00:49:54
How do you what message do you have through this liberation,

00:49:58
through the pages, for us to show up in these spaces, in an

00:50:00
authentic space where we, we know how to navigate, we know we

00:50:04
have that linguistic disparity, we have that identity,

00:50:07
dexterity, but how do you, what advice do you give and how to

00:50:11
show up authentically in a space and still command that respect?

00:50:15
Oh my.

00:50:16
Speaker 4: Oh my, oh my, oh my.

00:50:17
The words that come in mind right now is agency and power.

00:50:21
And so I think that what I would say is the moment, at

00:50:24
least for me, when I discovered and I did not discover this

00:50:26
until an adult how beautiful black language is.

00:50:28
Right, when I read this book, there's a whole lot of

00:50:31
alliteration and especially a lot of bees.

00:50:32
There's a lot of black boy bubble bubble, but you know.

00:50:35
But what I realized is there's something very rhythmic about

00:50:37
the way we speak, right, shout out to my enslaved African

00:50:40
ancestors, who already had rhythm, who already had bass,

00:50:42
who already had drum in their voice, in their ways of being so

00:50:45
.

00:50:45
For me it was sort of like a downloaded thing, and I think,

00:50:48
once I get read your work and read the work of so many other

00:50:51
scholars and linguists who study African American vernacular

00:50:53
English, I was like, wait a minute, I'm a multilingual

00:50:56
person, right, that means that I can move in multiple space.

00:51:01
This is a flex.

00:51:02
It is a flex and if you do it the right way, it can be real

00:51:07
scary for some folks.

00:51:08
Right and so right.

00:51:10
And so what I learned is what I learned is in my academic

00:51:12
writing, I don't cool switch Right, because that kind of

00:51:15
space, well, you kind of can't.

00:51:16
I mean you can't, but you kind of can't, although I did, I do,

00:51:21
and so I'm going to read an article coming to the Journal of

00:51:23
Negro Education.

00:51:23
It's called we Jile like sick of that shit, mo Kiel Toward the

00:51:28
emancipation of black education .

00:51:29
In that article I'm writing about the importance of black

00:51:32
speech and the ways in which we need to think about this when it

00:51:34
comes to standardized testing, because we got to stop telling

00:51:36
black kids they speak wrong.

00:51:37
We have to stop doing it.

00:51:38
I know y'all, I love y'all, but every time we it's not ain't

00:51:43
y'all let them speak.

00:51:44
That is language, it comes out of them, naturally.

00:51:46
How could that be wrong?

00:51:47
Right, how could be wrong?

00:51:48
I'm sorry.

00:51:55
Speaker 6: I don't know if that was permission or what.

00:52:01
Speaker 4: Even with that, you know, like as an educator, even

00:52:04
with that like going higher and understanding that the ordering

00:52:08
of letters is not the rules of grammar.

00:52:10
And if our learners are still operating in the rules of

00:52:13
grammar.

00:52:13
They shouldn't be penalized.

00:52:15
Yes, yes, yes.

00:52:16
There are cases.

00:52:17
There are cases in the early nineties around Ibonics and

00:52:22
African American vernacular English.

00:52:22
There were actually like school board resolutions that allowed

00:52:26
black language to be permissible in classrooms.

00:52:27
That was overturned by, like a bunch of white folks who were

00:52:30
like we don't want people speaking broken English in our

00:52:32
classroom, but at one point it was acknowledged as legitimate

00:52:35
language and so I put this.

00:52:36
I wrote an AAV in here on purpose, because I want black

00:52:40
kids to question.

00:52:41
I want them to ask their teachers um, why is that wrong?

00:52:45
Like I want them to challenge.

00:52:46
Challenge the system, you know.

00:52:49
Speaker 2: I don't know if that was the answer to the question,

00:52:50
but where that came from.

00:52:52
Speaker 4: This is uh so we, this family, this is one more.

00:52:55
This is what this family, this is this, this, this, this, like

00:52:57
this, like, yeah, this.

00:52:58
Speaker 2: Where is Tay?

00:52:59
What's his name?

00:53:03
Speaker 4: By the way, in this book most people's names have

00:53:05
been changed on purpose.

00:53:06
Do not go looking for nobody.

00:53:08
Do not go on Facebook trying to find nobody named Tyron.

00:53:12
That name does.

00:53:14
That's not a person.

00:53:15
I have forgiven that brother, I have forgotten.

00:53:22
It's fine.

00:53:22
And also I must say y'all my father is a loving, wonderful

00:53:25
man.

00:53:25
Please know, we've we've like reconciled, like me and Papa.

00:53:28
Good, don't go looking for him, don't.

00:53:31
Huh, yes, yes, me and Papa have we've, you know, we've mended.

00:53:36
Now I'm sorry, I'm sorry, don't go beating up by a.

00:53:42
Speaker 2: So so, look, I do apologize.

00:53:44
I wish we had really more time, because I want to hear more of

00:53:46
this.

00:53:47
This has been an incredible incredible conversation.

00:53:50
Please yes, yes.

00:53:53
I got a book I highly encourage.

00:53:57
I'm in the middle of a book right now, but I'm ready to get

00:54:00
to this Because I'm actually considering I think we might

00:54:03
even add it to our book club reading list this year.

00:54:05
Because it is, it is, it is something that and, speaking as

00:54:12
a black man, to be able to be vulnerable, and I began writing

00:54:15
poetry young because I was trying to figure out a way to

00:54:18
process my insecurities being bullied, being 120 pounds,

00:54:24
trying to play football, trying to measure up to what we're told

00:54:27
masculinity is supposed to be, and to be able to be in a place.

00:54:31
Now and this is why I own a bookstore, because we need to

00:54:35
find books that, as you always talk about, represents you and

00:54:39
speaks for you and then gives you a space to be able to say

00:54:42
you know what I am seeing, I feel loved, and it is okay that

00:54:46
I don't have to play to somebody else's portrait of what I'm

00:54:49
supposed to be.

00:54:50
I can be myself.

00:54:51
So I am absolutely like enamored .

00:54:54
I am all.

00:54:55
I love what you're doing.

00:54:56
Thank you, and I really do wish we had more time, but I want to

00:55:00
make sure we give everyone a chance to get their book signed,

00:55:03
to get a photograph and then give a hug and everything and

00:55:07
still get you guys home in time and stuff like that.

00:55:09
So and thank you all again for coming out.

00:55:13
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