To exist as an African descendant born in the Americas is to constantly face down antiblack forces designed and reproduced to extinguish the joy of living. Finding joy is a daily practice of survival.
Each day, I wake up with a short prayer, ancestral acknowledgment, and a whispered promise of making the most of the day, embrace its challenges, and keep open to its possibilities.
Having a job where I can talk about and think with Du Bois, and Assata, and Ida B., and Robin D.G., and bell, and Baldwin, and Fanon, and Carter G., and Callie House, and Robeson, and teach reparations and epistemology, all day, every semester, every year, is joy personified. For me, Black History Month never ends and Africana Studies is one place where Black Lives have always mattered.
Everything begins with music. My audio “soundzcaper” rotates Anderson Paak’s “Malibu” on my way into work. Solange’s “Seat at the Table” or Kendrick’s “To Pimp a Butterfly” or “Untitled,” accompany me as I leave the FPH parking lot in the early evening. These come closest to inspiring the feeling I get when I hear the opening phrase of Coltrane’s “Blue Train.” Listening to “Blue Train,” while reading “Before John was a Jazz Giant” to my son before bed at night completes the cipher.
I enjoy beaches in the summer—who doesn’t? A beautifully prepared salad that tastes, and is as healthy and good as it looks. Spending family time binge-watching old episodes of The Wire, and annual visits to the Golden State or to the Caribbean.
I enjoy a 7am pot of coffee and a neat desk that is orderly though stacked with student papers and articles arranged left to right in order of priority. To-do lists with all of the entries checked off. The relief of the last eval uploaded onto the Hub. A random note from a former student checking in to tell me that something happened that reminded of our time together.
I enjoy painting and assembling images and other handiwork of the imagination. Nag Champa or Frankincense accompanied by massage. A warm shower at the end of a long day. The time to sit and read for pleasure. Postcards from distant loved ones. Used-books stores and random archival discoveries. Gil Scott-Heron records. Opening a box of new kicks.
I enjoy working towards justice. Daily affirmation, prayer, and meditation. Knowledge of the divine. Inviting my students to deeper study, reflection, radical compassion, and revolutionary love.
As a professor, teacher, mentor and basketball coach, and the son of educators, I relish the time I spend with the young people I meet in and out of the classroom. I consider it a gift and privilege to get up in front of students and plant seeds in thirsty minds and able, hungry hearts. Aside from teaching, coaching my son’s basketball team—“Go Thunder!”—has been one of my most treasured activities. As a lifetime athlete, I find joy in working out and weekly basketball runs at the YMCA. At this age, I can still get a jumper to splash or get to the cup when necessary.
bell hooks reminds educators of our role in her book Teaching Community when she states:
Committed acts of caring let all students know that the purpose of education is not to dominate, or prepare them to be dominators, but rather to create the conditions for freedom. Caring educators open the mind, allowing students to embrace a world of knowing that is always subject to change and challenge.
At the close of his 1926 black arts essay, the activist, Harlemite, and poet Langston Hughes wrote: “We build our temples for tomorrow strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain free within ourselves.”
These two statements, affirming and calling forth the strength of spirit, inform my classroom practice and worldview. They are what I like to call mirror-maps, offering both direction and reflection. These freedom dreams, radical imagining, and visions of a liberated future are what I strive towards every day. And this undoubtedly brings me joy.
jacobvanloon
germansingergirl
theartofmadeline
snowghoul
titsay
izzy806
