The Morningside Monocle
front cover
Chevaun P5
Chevaun Samuels
Monocle Staff Editor-in-Chief Gabriella Okafor Copy Editor John Finnegan Poetry & Prose Editor Bret Matera Art Editor Liz Levin Layout Editor Connie Wang Treasurer Zachary Barker
Copyright 2019 Š by The Morningside Monocle at Columbia Law School. For more information, please visit us at www.themorningsidemonocle.com. ii
The Morningside Monocle Black History Month 2019
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Editor’s Note This project is the result of a collaboration between the Columbia Black Law Students Association and the Morningside Monocle. Our aim was to provide law students and the community at large with a platform to celebrate Black History Month through art. We received so many inspiring submissions that highlighted the beauty, pain, depth, recalcitrant hope, love, survival, and diversity that informs the realities of Black people in the United States and across the globe. Through their art, these artists have continued in the legacy of Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, Chinua Achebe, Teju Cole, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ava DuVernay, and Ryan Coogler, amongst other great Black artists who use art as a medium of resistance and survival. Within the walls of Columbia Law School lies a microscopic representation of the diversity within our society. Walking through the law school, you see people of different races and ethnicities, speaking different languages, in a melodic reminder of what the world is, and more importantly, what it can be. This issue aims to celebrate that diversity. Thank you to the Columbia Black Law Students Association for dreaming up the idea of the issue and seeing it through with passion. Thank you to the artists for allowing us a glimpse into your hearts and souls. It is not easy to open ourselves up to the world. It is the kind of bravery that most people can only aspire to. Thank you to the Editorial Board of the Morningside Monocle for bringing this issue to life with great zeal and care. Finally, thank you to our readers for reading, absorbing, critiquing, empathizing with, and engaging with these artists. Happy Black History Month everyone!
Gabriella Okafor, Editor-in-chief, The Morningside Monocle; Ibrahim Diallo, Social Consciousness Chair, Black Law Students Association.
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Table of Contents photography 1 4 6 8 10 13 13 15 16 17 17 19 22 24 26 28 vi
Kossam - Birnin Konni, Niger Fulani Nomad Harare - Zimbabwe Fulani Nomad Fruitful swamps - Okavango, Botswana Fulani Nomad Abunda Yemata Guh Lauren Chang In and out - Sokoto, Nigeria Fulani Nomad Burkina here I come - Niger Fulani Nomad La terre rouge - Goudiri, Senegal Fulani Nomad No end - Dakar, Senegal Fulani Nomad Farming is life - Sokoto, Nigeria Fulani Nomad Its a dance off - Bamako, Mali Fulani Nomad Pan Africa - Dakar, Senegal Fulani Nomad La fete - Bamako, Mali Fulani Nomad Zambezi sunset - Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe Fulani Nomad Hoop Dreams Avanthi Mishael Cole Life across the river - Podor, Senegal Fulani Nomad Blackwoman excellence - Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso Fulani Nomad
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Chevaun P4 Chevaun Samuels Chevaun P6 Chevaun Samuels The Power of Black Michelle Bigony Take me to bamako - Mali Fulani Nomad
art
poetry
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Flower Garden Sheniqua Young 20 Romance Sheniqua Young 34 Melody Sheniqua Young
prose 5
The Scars on my Soul Anonymous 7 Black Girls are Stardust Ayomide Omobo 25 Trini Alexi Thomas
Black and white A.K. 11 Labor Anonymous 12 Untitled Sijuwade Falade 12 On Eric Garner. Oyinkansola Muraina 14 A Letter to Zora and Langston Sijuwade Falade 18 An elegy for a massacre, June 17, 2015, before 11:51 pm Joshuah Brian Campbell 22 Black Gay Vintage Alejandro Heredia 32 En Dos Mil Veinte/ In Two Thousand Twenty Krystal Vazquez 36 Sing On Lauren Fields vii
Kossam Birnin Konni, Niger
Fulani Nomad
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Flower Garden
Sheniqua Young
Black and white A.K. we make eye contact; i wonder if his smile notices my chocolate shade. we talk of politics and families; i wonder if he treads lightly at the mention of MLK. we hold hands and the moon winks; but fingers locked i see black and white. maybe he is colorblind; but in this world where other blue eyes fear my brothers, stare too long, discredit my success – it’s easy to see that i’ve been led to believe first, he saw my race, and then he saw me.
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Harare - Zimbabwe Fulani Nomad
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The Scars on my Soul Anonymous The scars on my body reflect my soul. They are a roadmap to recovery, a roadmap through history. My very being is a mirror to the pain of my ancestors. Their mournful cries forever etched into my body. I am the physical embodiment of the pain carried in our soul. Ultimately, I believe we are nothing but an amalgamation of the humanity preceding us. Future generations, therefore, will be what we are and then some. That is how I know pain is cyclical. Pain is strength, they tell us. We find the strength of our ancestors in our pain. They are wrong. Pain can be strength, but finding the strength in pain is a process. We have to recover from our past, from our collective trauma. And yet, in its own devious way, clinging to its own existence trauma knows how to prevent healing. “Black people don’t take them pills. Mental illness? That’s a white man’s disease. You a child; what you got to be depressed about? You just need some church. When the last time you went? Well, that’s what’s wrong. It’s the devil inside you.” Black people don’t take them pills. But what happens when black people need them pills? Black women are strong, resilient. We carry the world on our shoulders. And we do it without help. Because those pills are only for them crazy people. You just got to carry it all. Until you fall. After you fall, you wake up restrained to a hospital bed. You hear this screaming and wish that person would shut up. It takes a while until you realize that the screaming is you. Can’t show weakness. There’s only one solution. You calm down and ask to go to the bathroom, lock the door, and hit your head against the mirror until it cracks, trying to get a shard big enough to slit your wrists. Until the nurse gets a key and pulls you back out. Until you’re back on the bed, restrained. And then it’s too late. Your family knows. Your sister pulls up at four in the morning and sees you covered with blood from ripping your IV out and trying to end it again with the bathroom mirror. You don’t get to pee by yourself anymore. Nothing is private. Nothing is yours. As you lie there on the ground, having fallen from the great heights your ancestors carried you to, you wonder if you lost out on the strength that defines the Black Woman. Where other women are made of glass, the Black Woman is made of stone. How could I be made of stone if I broke? Am I made of something else? Am I thinner, more brittle, unable to withstand the crushing weight of generations of torment? Can our generation recover so that the wounds on our hearts are not reflected in our children’s souls? 5
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Fruitful swamps - Okavango, Botswana Fulani Nomad
Black Girls are Stardust Ayomide Omobo Nobody knows what happens to fallen stars. One day, they are there in the sky and the next moment, they are gone. They fall through the sky so quickly that nobody can grab them. I thought someone would catch me. It didn’t feel so fast when I was falling. One moment, I was in the sky too. In the next moment, I could see my sisters, sparkling and hiding shyly behind clouds. In the next moment, I fell. I knew immediately which ones my sisters were. Their skins glowed and sparkled, just as bright as when they were in the sky. They shone like gems, with skin of obsidian. Their eyes were dark and soft and when they looked at each other, their eyes twinkled. When they smiled, they burned so bright that people fell away from them. They were more than the Earth they stood on. They were the daughters of the sky; within each one, the universe. My sisters were bowed. They carried the weight of their shine like crosses on their backs. Who would hurt a being so ethereal? They tried to dim their light, my sisters said. They said their glow was hurtful. Oppressive. They tried to take their sparkle. When the luster would not rub off, they made it a burden. Carry your gift, it is a curse. Nobody should radiate so much light that it blinds others. I asked one of my sisters why. She said don’t you know that you are the universe? Don’t you know that you are light? Don’t you know that the night sky, without us, is just ordinary? How do you ask a queen to bow? How do you ask a Goddess to be mortal? How can you look at us and ask that we not be holy? How can you ask the extraordinary to be your normal? How can you see my divinity and not worship? When you look up at the sky, see us. When you see a star, so high in the sky, twinkling and winking at you, think about us. Us with the skin like twilight and the eyes like moons. 7
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Abunda Yemata Guh Lauren Chang
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In and out - Sokoto, Nigeria Fulani Nomad
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Labor Anonymous Despondent. Sick. Exhausted. Exasperated. Clawfully clinging to the last bits of self-affirming humanity I have left... My despondency is pregnant with rage. Feeding the unborn with images of Black bodies murdered at the hands of believed protectors, Sustaining it with tepid tears for the fallen, Caressing it with prayers to the Most High for deliverance, protection, salvation... But Oh My God, that day That day when the baby’s head crowns from her mother’s womb When Rage is born Eyes opening from all that she has experienced and felt and pained and remembered from before she even breathed her first breath There will be no stopping her. The world will never be the same. Her Fear will become yours ...and you will feel her pain. #AiyanaJones #TrayvonMartin #JordanDavis #RenishaMcBride #EricGarner #JohnCrawford #MichaelBrown #LaquanMcDonald #TamirRice #TonyRobinson #AnthonyHill #EricHarris #WalterScott #FreddieGray #DajerriaBecton #ClementaPinckney #CynthiaHurd #SusieJackson #EthelLance #DepayneMiddletonDoctor #TywanzaSanders #DanielSimmons #SharondaColemanSingleton #MyraThompson #SandraBland #ChristianTaylor #JamarClark #AltonSterling #PhilandoCastile #CharlesKinsey #CharleenaLyles #TheUnnamed #TheUnknown
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Burkina here I come - Niger
Untitled
Fulani Nomad
Sijuwade Falade I have this way of turning dead, black bodies Into an extended metaphor, They fall out of my mouth, one after the other— Limbs entangled, tripping and tumbling. Much like how my tongue does when I remember They had names... When I say them aloud. But isn’t repetition just another rhetorical device? I still cannot tell if this is hurt or healing, Therapy or trauma, relived... Oh, what a privilege!
On Eric Garner. Oyinkansola Muraina today they were victorious. so i finally bowed. two hands leaning on one another for support no longer appeared sufficient. No. the whole body must bend towards this, my head and toes must recite the eulogy of their forbears and their progeny. today they won. the white flags planted in my scalp rose prematurely as it all flooded over: the stress. the sadness. the hate. and i cried; bitterly. bathed myself in a sea of my own making. and still could not be washed clean of the impending murder stretched across my skin. and so i swam, legs kicking, arms flailing until fatigue settled in and i had no choice but to drown. to fall ever deeper, into such an abyss, such a darkness as was never beheld by man. i pray they never find this wreck.Â
La terre rouge - Goudiri, Senegal 12
Fulani Nomad
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A Letter to Zora and Langston (after Sandra Bland and Eric Garner)
Sijuwade Falade Dear Mr. Hughes, Mrs. Hurston, I want to express my gratitude‌ To thank you for putting pen to paper And creating stories That gave voice to our people That announced that we were here And we were loud Thank you for turning blood into ink And letting them know That, much like the moon, We shone the brightest in the darkness. Thank you for helping to eventually inspire the cultural revolution That was the black arts movement, Often mistaken for a dark arts one. Understandable, after all, black people do be magical We be word sorcerers, we bewitch and be witches, We be that strange voodoo that we do so well. We be so magical. Be hair that defies laws of physics, be skin that absorbs sunrays. We emit light. We be so SO magical. Be somehow able to shoot ourselves, handcuffed in the back of a police car Or hang ourselves, in a jail cell, with a plastic bag. But Mr. Hughes, Mrs. Hurston, can I ask you a question? If a black person disappears every two days and no one is around to report it Or applaud, Can it still be called a vanishing act? Mr. Hughes, Mrs. Hurston, Did you ever suspect that almost a century later That black boy would still be dream deferred, black girl still be mule of this earth, Black bodies still bend, break, burn, beat, bloody under white gaze?
No end - Dakar, Senegal 14
Fulani Nomad
And this here ain’t no terrorist attack, Ain’t no Isis or Boko Haram This is our own backyard, And in it stands a poplar tree Bearing strange fruit… It’s got blood on its leaves, from its branch hangs a noose… One that has been strangling us for decades, Been cutting off our air supply for years Rope so tight, its chafing away our brown skin They’re tryna make us forget this brown skin, That we did not ask to be born into. Just as we did not ask to be placed here, In this space Where we feel most colored against stark white backdrop… A contrast almost as tangible as lynched body parts being sold as souvenirs. Mr. Hughes, Mrs. Hurston, Why we always got to be choking on oppression Or waiting to exhale? How come we still can’t breathe yet? I can’t breathe… y’all….
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Its a dance off Bamako, Mali Fulani Nomad
Pan Africa Dakar, Senegal
Fulani Nomad
Farming is life - Sokoto, Nigeria Fulani Nomad
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La fete - Bamako, Mali Fulani Nomad
An elegy for a massacre, June 17, 2015, before 11:51 p.m. Joshuah Brian Campbell love who you love tightly, gunshots like long-ago recorded words, to pierce to the division of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. tomorrow dawn will come, white will wash over a protected city justice will rain down, seeping six feet under to where i will see from behind closed eyes through darkness dug up centuries ago. love who you love tightly, tomorrow is forever away.
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love who you love tightly, like reynold’s wrap on fried chicken and greens and candied yams carried out of back doors and bodies strapped downtight and rolled out of vestibules; vestments stained—this is not Christ’s blood, for His sake cry out from dry throats. Drink your tears and cry on, cry out love and rapture to your vaulted rafters, align your sunken necks with your unafraid steeple, piercing into sunlight and freedom, cry and sway to this song of pain, sing what you cannot unsee. cry once again to the rock you will see, though open and unrelenting, hell’s gates cannot prevail. love who you love tightly, and now.
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Romance
Sheniqua Young
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Black Gay Vintage Alejandro Heredia They collect in the edge of the city. Boys skin dark like gold dust, like Black night. They meet under honey moon sky, sweet whiskey guiding their step. Muscles flexed against a neon pulse. At the back of a bar or some motel room somewhere, nest of hair pressed to another kinky head. Hand at the crux of the cock, hand parting cheek from cheek. Quivering lust. Switchblade sex. Mango sweet love. Sudden light. Eruption, then afterglow.
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Zambezi sunset - Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe Fulani Nomad
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Hoop Dreams
Avanthi Mishael Cole
Trini Alexi Thomas Ever since she could remember, Trini hated her name. Trinika Leeanne Stewart. Her mother had told her, “You know, your name is unique. Why don’t you like it?”, in a lame attempt to comfort, beginning with her first tantrum after coming to the U.S. That had been a rough day at school, one that still stood tall in her memory 15 years later. Coming to the U.S. as a 7-year-old had made her transition much easier than it might have been, but whoever said children are innocent and well-meaning wasn’t spending time with the right children. Her CD player was stolen, her bag vandalized and she was called ‘African booty scratcher’ and ‘horse hair head’ more times than she could count that one day. It probably hurt even more that her hairstyle wasn’t uncommon. It was as if for some reason it was unacceptable on her. When she got home that day, for the first time, Trinika faced her mother and asked her things, like “Why name me Trinika? Where does that even come from?” and “Why do I talk like this?” and “If they don’t want us here, then why did we come?” They didn’t even care that she was actually Jamaican-- her accent and those of the other Caribbean and Nigerian children in her grade immediately marked them as prey. Some were just as aggressive as their bullies, getting into fights and getting suspended as a matter of pride. Trinika wasn’t so brave; for her, it was a matter of escape. Very early on, when her body seemed wrong for her and her mind was running in sad circles, books could save her. They could coax her out of her corner and into beautiful universes full of color and love and adventure, light years away from her real life. Even though Trini read books more for her own sanity than she did to please teachers, her progress through the lettered book ranking, equivalent to a middle or even high school reading level in 5th grade, excited her teachers. They praised her and gave her attention and rewards that the rest of the class did not get. She had come a long way from getting in trouble for reading under the desk in 3rd grade. This made bullying even worse, but the charter school that her principal handpicked for her middle school years promised a new start with like-minded friends. 25
Of course, this was not to be. Middle school was only marginally better than elementary school. She had 2 best friends and a group of other friends from elementary school that she hung out with every day, Sophie being Haitian with strict parents and Ruby being African American with lots of freedom compared to her and Sophie. The problem was that their school was nestled on the top floor of a building that housed 3 other schools. Children from her middle school were routinely bullied, even beaten up or jumped by children from the other schools. Like many other charter schools, Trinika’s eventually faded into its surroundings and became nothing more or less than the other schools in the building, but she was long gone by then. She had applied and been accepted to one of the best high schools in the city. She explored her interests until the sight of them made her sick with over-indulgence. From there, she was accepted into an Ivy League in a large, metropolitan city. As the child of mostly illiterate rural farmers, Trinika realized how important the next 4 years of her life would be. But how was she going to reconcile her Caribbean sensibilities with the slick, formulaic interactions she knew would be necessary to get by in a place like Houghton? Lies. Lots and lots of lies. “How much do you get per month, Marty?” The tall, blond boy in front of her turned towards his shorter, brunet friend and sighed. “Just fifteen hundred,” he mumbled, shrugging and glaring into the distance. Trinika, who had only been listening passively, focused mostly on the natural hair Instagram page on her smartphone’s screen, froze. Her heart felt like it would seize up and stop, but then it started beating so fast she felt dizzy. Was this rage? Jealousy? Envy? Sorrow? Regret? Even though this seemingly normal conversation that wasn’t even hers to begin with felt like it had shattered her day, a perverse curiosity kept Trinika’s legs moving.
Life across the river Podor, Senegal 26
Fulani Nomad
“I mean, honestly. I can watch maybe 3 or 4 Broadway shows, yeah, orchestra seats of course, have a nice dinner once or twice a week. I don’t cook because I have dining plan A, but whatever you know? How much do you get?” Looking over at his companion, the blonde one had a combination of nonchalance and subtle challenge in his demeanor. “I mean it’s whatever, my mom puts 3 in my account every month, but it’s not a big deal, you know? I barely ever use the whole thing, unless I go shopping or hit the club really hard.” The slight brunet boy shrugged guiltily, not wanting to go into any more detail. Instead of shock, which is what Trini was feeling, anger filled the blonde boy. “Are you fucking serious? I told them fifteen hundred isn’t enough. I’m gonna call my mom right after class.” The blonde boy shoved his hands into the pockets of his salmon pink shorts and they started heading up the steps toward the old library, their voices trailing off. Trini had been heading somewhere, but she couldn’t really remember where. The numbers these two teenagers had thrown around echoed in her mind. She had never considered how students with wealthy parents actually lived. How did their parents support them? Apparently, they sent money, and lots of it. In that split second, Trini was made aware of the fact that she had peers who had never had to work to eat or clothe themselves. That brunet boy, probably a junior or senior, received 36,000 per year from his family. Almost 40,000. That was almost what her mother made. About 10,000 less. Suddenly, Trini was awash with shame. She wondered if people could tell how poor she was and how hard she had to work for the things she had. Did her Gap, Old Navy and even WalMart brand clothing show? Was it obvious?
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Shaken but unwilling to completely lose her composure in public, Trini gave up on making it to her original destination, turned around and headed back to her dorm. Now that she was sitting in a space that hadn’t been rocked by revelation, Trini could breathe and try to capture some distance from those boys, from those numbers, from everything. Her mind was racing. What the fuck was she doing here? On the day she got into Houghton, she stared at the letters on the screen until they drooped, and only then did she turn, not breathing, to her best friend and show her the screen. The relief, excitement and pride that had filled her that day mocked her now. At no other point had she felt more like an impostor than she did right now, at this very moment. The vibration of her bag still hanging off of her arm snapped her out of her brain. “Hello?” Trini kicked off her black boots, pacing up and down in her relatively large single and rubbing the back of her neck. She had yet to figure out what she was going to do about paying her study abroad fees if she was accepted.
Blackwoman excellence - Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso Fulani Nomad
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Chevaun P4
Chevaun Samuels 30
Chevaun P6
Chevaun Samuels 31
En Dos Mil Veinte/ In Two Thousand Twenty Krystal Vazquez “Sabíamos que éramos negros, sin saber que éramos negros...” — Néstor Ruíz Mexico deports him when he has the papers to prove que es Mexicano. Es Moreno, Negro, Afro-Mexicano, Blaxican like la bamba bailando in his bones, rolling back to the Mbamba of Angola rocking to the Son Jarocho on the Gulf Coast catapulting forward to Compton where an abuelita spoons nopales with pork meat in a loving circle on a tostada for her grandson.
The Power of Black Michelle Bigony
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Mexico imports him and one day his country will count him, count the bodies in Guerrero and Oaxaca, scoop up the citizens of pueblos negros like Cuajinicuilapa at the center of the Costa Chica debuting the masses from secluded fishing villages and the seaports of Veracruz like quinceañeras, a backwards waltz to unveil the centuries: wave of the 1600’s when Black Kings met Morena Maidens on the shore, wave of the 1960’s, lifting the Lupita Guadalupes up from their holsters as sea-foam soldaderas from turbulent waters of the past for the future. Mexico transports him but un día his país rediscovers him, the body it made bathe in shadows and now invites to the party with other dancers costumed and clothed for the same egungun masquerade with the donkey-jawbone beat: blackness erased with blood still blooming with sub Saharan traces— a truth the serpent and eagle are in cahoots to keep quiet with each bite atop the cactus until now.
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Melody
Sheniqua Young
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Sing On after “Sing Out, March On� by Joshuah Campbell
Lauren Fields We are a people of prayer in chorus. We were given these voices to resound, to cast reverberations at our shackles until they shake themselves loose. The body is only half the battle the voice cannot be bound, not when it is multiplied, not when thousands of new voices rise up alongside. Silence was never our culture, was never our creed or station, these lungs breathe justice into lyric, into melody, into half-dug graves filled too soon. We will sing our souls out
Take me to bamako - Mali Fulani Nomad
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of this shadow, out of the despair of seeing ourselves hunted, seeing ourselves ground down into the mortar to build a house that refuses us entry, that refuses our children and our children’s children entry until we are convinced we are homeless, but listen to the homes our voices build. Listen to this praise of a new morning, listen to the rhythms our ancestors left us, roadmaps of resistance. Listen to this battle cry for tomorrow, because silence was never our culture. We were given these voices to resound.
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