The Weary Blues

By:  Kayla Gilbert                                                      

Some tunes never lose their statues. Ones playlist, can be questioned or challenged, a bop and groove can cause a rhythmic step in ones strut. However, history complicates our strut.

On April 25th  in the MLK room, there was silence , as visitor Jabari Asim, nonfiction writer read from his book of essays, We Can’t Breath.

Asim, humbled to read from his collection asked that we stop and take into consideration his inspiration and point of views he scribes from. He comments, “I write from three perspectives, a husband, parent and a son. I look at everything through those lenses---trying to translate those experiences.” History has a hard time adjusting to change. History is cruel and unforgiving as Asim regales his listeners. Within his introduction to African-American history, he shines a light on travesties of said history. Touching on those cruelties that some may have failed to recall. From African colonization of earth shattering shackles forcing a strut on foreign soil. For how can one strut on foreign soil? To the time of Emancipation Proclamation; gifting African American’s freedom to strut on once foreign soil. Their  strut was complicated, Freedom only granted post-Civil war times as soldiers, Soldiers who fought not only for their deserved freedom but for the freedom of their caucasian counterparts.  Soldiers that would remain soldiers for far too long donning the gear of the “weary blues,” There are somethings we neglect about the smooth rhythmic jazz of the blues. Songs of the 20^th century, originating from African Americans folk songs, the roots of sorrow delving deep.

The experience of “inhabiting a dark body, in spaces were there may not be many other dark bodies.”  Asim states, he strives to write; so the reader can claim ”I believe what I am reading.”  As Asim unravels the history of cruelty before the Salem State student body, we learn of a young boy  Emmett Louis Till who is denied justice, and after his horrific murder be falsely accused of assaulting a white woman. Defaced and desecrated Emmett, would ignite the flames of the Civil Rights Movement.

Asim’s voice shatters the crowd, “as we take one step forward, we take two steps backwards,”  Some would deny this backwards strut, that we’ve only moved forward. Yet we replay the same. As sorrowful as the blues. It’s troubling to see the similarities of our bop and groove. Claiming we would never rewrite history in such a cruel manner. Though the Civil Rights Movement has become a part of our history. We’ve neglected history. And if neglected for far too long history has a way of repeating itself. The Black Lives Matter Movement, is a product of this negligence, Asim has  us  look closely at our timeline, sixty-two years since the death of Emmett Louis Till. Sixty-two years and the death of another younger boy Trayvon Martin. Martin gunned down by George Zimmerman, Skittles scattered about  against the concrete. Again denied justice for this unjust act. Another sorrowful root, to add to the growing blues of African American history. For when will we decide to alter our playlist, and change our song? When will we learn to strut together as equals?