Jennifer Marie Brissett

The last writing exersize in my class asked if I had an emotional reaction to being asked about my ethnicity. I was a little surprise at what came out of me. Here is part of the essay that I wrote —

The other emotion reaction I have about my ethnicity causes me deep, deep shame. My country of origin, Jamaica, is considered the most homophobic place on the planet. Growing up I used to hear things like “botty-bwoy,” but I didn’t understand what it meant. I also used to hear stories of policemen turning away when something was happening to the “botty-bwoy.” This was all said with laughter around the Thanksgiving table, so I suppose that the true meaning of it all went right passed me. I’m deeply ashamed of this. This is actually the first time that I’ve even written about it. I was raised to treat everyone the way I would like to be treated. Or at least that’s the message that I received. I never understood the part “except for them.” I actually know a guy who is illegally hiding in the US for fear that his family will have him killed for being gay. (And these days it would be a awful risk to try to apply for political asylum in the US for such a reason. There is no assurance from this Administration of protection.) The current prime minister of Jamaica, Bruce Golding, is a proud homophobe. I just don’t know what to say. I know that I shouldn’t be held responsible for the actions of my countrymen, yet it’s something that I barely have been able to talk about for the shame of it. This is emotional for me. There are many reasons to be proud of my heritage. This is just not one of them.

Human Rights Watch has an open letter to Minister Golding asking him to “to express our concern that Jamaican police have again failed to protect individuals from homophobic violence.” It’s scary. I just didn’t understand what was happening as a child. This is a disgrace!

I just got back from Upstate New York and I must admit that this was one of the hardest trips I’ve ever had to make. We went upstate to bury Geoff’s little brother, John. He died a few weeks ago and since then I’ve just been trying to occupy my mind so that I don’t think about it too much. It is so overwhelming. He died so young, just 44. It made me feel fragile — about my life, about Geoff’s life, about everyone around me. Life feels so uncertain. I guess it never was certain.

I’ve been reading Aeschylus’ plays because RFK read them after his brother died. It seemed to give him comfort. That’s why he was able to quote from Aeschylus after MLK was killed. I found a video of the speech on YouTube. (You can see RFK stop at the word “despair” because he changed the word from “despite.” It was a powerful interpretive touch.)

Aeschylus in Robert F. Kennedy’s speech:

In our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart until,
in our own despair,
against our will,
comes wisdom
through the awful grace of God.

I’ve been trying to understand what it all means. Against our will, comes wisdom, I can only hope so. I don’t feel very wise. I created the memorial website for John, mostly as a holding place for the slide show that his Mom asked me to create to be shown at the Memorial Service. It was more of a Memorial Gathering. Making the slide show took a lot out of me. I cried and cried while making it. But I was so honored that the family would want me to do it. I really felt like part of the family during all this. I guess this is the the awful grace of God at work.

Anyway, that’s all I have for today. Feeling kinda raw. Feeling kinda tired.

I haven’t written poetry in years. I actually had given it up because I didn’t think that I was any good. It turns out that this really doesn’t matter. In the writing class that I’m taking, the Prof. suggests using poetry as a way to loosen up and pull at the rhythm for prose writing. Interesting idea. She gave us an exercise to write a poem describing a body. Here is what I came up with —

The Body
Bitter bark covered maple wood stained
Burnt by the sun charcoal
Bended shoulders curved back
weighed down by the elements
Swollen calves planted firmly on the earth
Rounded trunk filled out by time
Wide arms made shelter
from the storms
To the sun erect neck poised high
Reaching ever upwards
Bitter bark covered maple wood stained

I was looking for this artist today on the Current site and couldn’t find him. Since I saw the pod on him months ago, but didn’t see the beginning and didn’t catch his name. Then I opened up TimeoutNY and there he was, in featured in the arts section. His portraits are incredible. He combines iconography with urban culture (code: black folks). Evidently he has a show at the Studio Museum until Oct 26 which I will do my best to check out.