Timestamp: Musings of an Introverted Black Boy
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About this ebook
My story is probably not like yours. I’m a Black boy from the Midwest. I’ve never been kissed. I’m desperately in love with two women: Aretha and Whitney. I struggle with a mild form of social anxiety. I sing to myself almost everywhere I go. I’m an ex-chitlins (with hot sauce and ketchup) lover. I’ve been called an Oreo. I’ve been stopped by the police while walking home. I’m the descendant of slaves, and a Harvard graduate.
Though our stories may not be the same, the universal themes explored in this poignant and personal literary collection—love, identity, hope, social justice, and coming of age—bond us together. Timestamp: Musings of an Introverted Black Boy is many things: It’s one Black boy’s journey through college and into adulthood. It’s a compilation of intimate musings, short and long. It’s an anthology of reflections linked to distinct moments in time. It’s a series of meditations on life, love, and the lack thereof. It’s not simply a “Black” book, or even a “millennial” one. It’s a human book.
I wrote it for everyone—and that includes you.
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Book preview
Timestamp - Marcus Granderson
A POST HILL PRESS BOOK
ISBN: 978-1-64293-182-2
ISBN (eBook): 978-1-64293-183-9
Timestamp:
Musings of an Introverted Black Boy
© 2019 by Marcus Granderson
All Rights Reserved
Author photo by Steven Duarte
Poem for dedication courtesy of Najya Williams,
used with permission. © 2017 by Najya Williams
This is a work of nonfiction. All people, locations, events, and situations are portrayed to the best of the author’s memory.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.
Post Hill Press
New York • Nashville
posthillpress.com
Published in the United States of America
I’m here today because generations before me
refused to move.
They held on—
not even knowing
unborn children of generations
yet to come
would make it to this moment.
I am
the offspring of their sacrifice,
the fruit of a freedom tree
planted by the enslaved
and watered with the tears
of the shackled,
the daydream of slave minds drunk
with precious thoughts of liberty,
the answered prayer
of an oppressed people.
Because they were,
I am.
This book is for them—all of them.
"Don’t let my seeds grow in conquered lands.
Allow them to flourish in wild terrain—
unkept and unbothered as they were intended."
—Najya Williams, Poet and Author of Cotton
Musings
Introduction
Oreos
Charleston
Hallelujah Anyhow
Expiration Date
Consolation Prizes
Gym Advice
Don’t You Want to Dance?
Character Construction
Addictive Love
Alton & Philando
Dallas
Happy Ending?
Black Girl Magic
No Rehearsal Today
Pop Off
Fog Walker
That Sucks
Last Night
Please, Wear the Shoes
The Distance
Sunrise
Amazing Grace
Twenty Gray
Hair Like Mine
Travel Bans
Fingerprinted Seasons
Divine Art
Please Be Advised
Not My Job
Motown Love
Fishes
Greener Grass?
End Scene
They Did It
Letters to the Young Traveler
Play Catch
To a T
Fruitful Solitude
Shape-Shifter
Accidental Narcissist
The Voice
Sticks
On Christmas
Valentine’s Day
Young, Gifted, and Black
Théâtre Noir: A Tribute to Black Theater
Just Like Us
Class of 2018
Purple Fields
Selective Muteness
Whitney
Young Kid, B.I.G. City
Caught Up
Lady Soul
Eat Wash Love (and Listen to Aretha)
Sometimes, Often, Always
Boy Gear
Epilogue
The Soundtrack
Thank You
About the Author
Introduction
Black people in this country have been denied access to the full breadth of the human experience for over four centuries. Under America’s system of chattel slavery, we were stripped of our humanity and reduced to property. We were branded lazy, buffoonish, violent, aggressive, overly seductive, simple-minded, and worthy of subjugation.
After Emancipation, these degrading characterizations of Blackness lived on, and they continue to do so to this day. Even though much progress has been made, we are still portrayed—in movies, television shows, and other forms of modern entertainment and media—in one-dimensional ways that fail to fully account for the nuances of our humanity. So many of our true stories have yet to be told—and believed.
That’s why I’m here.
In some sense, Timestamp: Musings of an Introverted Black Boy is my response to this troubling reality. It’s a collection of essays, poems, and short reflections that explores what it means to be young, Black, single, introverted, a person of faith, and so much more. It implicitly and explicitly affirms a simple, yet powerful truth: Black people are really just like everyone else; we’re messy, beautifully complicated humans who hope, hurt, dream, fail, and yearn for love—all in the same breath.
Beyond this, the writings featured in this book were written over the course of my time at Harvard, and in the months following my graduation. I arrived on campus in the fall of 2014 and left in the spring of 2018. During that time, quite a few things happened:
Protests erupted in Ferguson, Missouri, in response to the police shooting of Michael Brown, an eighteen-year-old, unarmed Black kid.
Tamir Rice, a twelve-year-old Black boy, was fatally shot by a police officer who mistook his toy gun for a real one.
Rev. Clementa Pinckney, Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lance, Rev. DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Rev. Daniel Simmons, Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, and Myra Thompson were gunned down in their house of worship by a self-proclaimed white supremacist.
Sandra Bland was found hanging dead in a jail cell just three days after being stopped for a traffic violation.
Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were killed by police officers within forty-eight hours of each other.
Donald J. Trump was elected president of the United States.
Barack Obama, the first Black president in U.S. history, left office.
White nationalist demonstrations were held on the University of Virginia’s campus in Charlottesville.
And the list goes on and on and on.
In addition to witnessing all of these racially-charged and racist events, I experienced an awakening in my own life. Having grown up in an overwhelmingly white suburb, I didn’t fully realize who I was until I came to college. That’s when I first reckoned with what it truly meant to be Black in America. And while coming to terms with that jarring truth, I also tried to come of age while maintaining some semblance of my sanity. Needless to say, there was a lot to process.
More so than ever before, I turned to writing to make sense of these realities. Once I did that, there was no going back; there was so much else I needed to understand. And as I began sharing my written reflections through social media and other outlets, the feedback I received made it clear there was a common thread of humanity running throughout my story that connected it to so many others. I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t just writing for me. There were others. So, I kept writing, and somewhere along the way, Timestamp: Musings of an Introverted Black Boy found its way into the world. Its birth wasn’t plotted or preplanned (not on my part, at least). In so many ways, it was an unexpected arrival. But, now that it’s here—all grown-up