All Day

by Liza Jessie Peterson

  “Can’t nobody tell me nothing! I do me! My biological mother put me in the tub to give me and my brother a bath when I was six months old and turned the water on and it began to get hot. She runs to answer the phone and forgets about me and my brother in the tub while she’s running her fucking, excuse me, running her mouth on the phone. She’s having a conversation, never came back to check on us and we burning in the tub; I got second- and third-degree burns all over. My foster mother told us what happened years later when I asked why my foster brother has a different last name than me. That’s when she sat me and my biological brother down and told us.”

  Tyquan has command of the floor and no one interrupts.

  “So, if my own mother who gave birth to me left me in the tub, then… okay, I can see you go answer the phone, but you come right back. You don’t just leave me. I’m your son! I’m a baby! So that tells me that her conversation was more important than her baby; I’m her son.” He repeats I’m her son over and over like a sacred mantra, a prayer he needs God and his mother to hear to make her repent.

  “Now if she can do me like that, and that’s my mother and I’m her son! How I think you gonna do me? And I don’t know you, you not even family. I don’t trust nobody! Okay, we might be friends and you might be my dude, or like my brother, we might be like family and all, but if your own mother…”

  Tyquan drifts back to the memory of his mother, uncorking a pain that has been tearing through his soul, and he bears it to us, offering up a bruised peach.

  “If it wasn’t for my foster mother… she’s seventy-two years old, she took me and my brother since we was babies. I love that woman. If something was to happen to her, God forbid, ’cause she’s old, so you never know. And I’m going upstate for two and a half to three years…”

  He stops at the thought of his aging foster mother dying while he’s incarcerated. It brings the river to his eyes, but the river never flows; he wouldn’t dare allow a tear to drop. His eyes glisten like beautiful brown crystal marbles.

  “Word to everything I love, if something happens to her while I’m up top, I ain’t gonna make it… I ain’t gonna make it, son.”

  Tyquan, aka Africa, aka Prince tha Don, is standing vulnerable, spirit prostrate, at the altar of God in front of his peers in hell. He’s peeling his scabs, tearing his skin, blood and pus oozing from his heart. It is painful and necessary. He is brave. He is Black, beautiful, and courageous. He is exposed and raw. He is in Rikers, naked in front of the class, many of whom prey on the weak.

  But Tyquan is not weak. He is extraordinary. His testimony has silenced the room, revealing the truth of his humanity, laying down a shield he’s carried for seventeen years, too heavy to hold any longer. His wounds and fears resonate with the entire class, all of whom I am sure have childhood traumas of their own buried deep in their hearts, hiding beneath gangster tattoos. I’m proud of Tyquan for being a lionhearted warrior. I’m proud of the class for being compassionate soldiers who didn’t strike but held him up with affirming nods. He took a valiant step toward his healing and I pray it continues. Silently I lift Tyquan in prayer. May his growth blossom daily. May he forgive his mother and learn to love himself fiercely. May God and the archangels of Light protect him and cover him during his journey in prison. May he discover comfort and joy. May his divine purpose be revealed unto him. May the ancestors guide him. I pray he wins. I pray he soars. Mother Father God, hear my prayer.

  When hearing stories like Tyquan’s, and some that are worse, the challenge is to not get caught up and stuck in their woundology. I had to learn how to acknowledge the pain without coddling it. I had to learn to let the wound breathe by discussing it, but not giving it absolute power by lounging in the trauma. I won’t allow their wound to become their identity. I look for their strengths, I recognize their gifts, I remind them of their resilience, and I find the good and praise it. It’s a balance indeed.

  Kenny gets it and goes straight to Tyquan’s strength. “You’re stronger than you think, my man; you’re still here, still standing strong, my dude. You got contributions to make. And besides, you can’t make it in the hood and be from where you’re from and not be strong—you got a leader personality. You’re what they call an ‘alpha male.’ Whatever you put your mind to, both good and bad, you make it happen. Your will is strong.”

  Nodding his head in agreement, Tyquan revels in the compliment. “Word… word.”

  Like a commercial interrupting a powerful scene in a made-for-TV after-school special, the CO barks, “Walking out!” signaling the guys to line up in the hallway for lunch.

  It’s a presidential election year, and quite a historic one, with the first African-American citizen nominated to be the Democratic candidate. The country is less than a month away from possibly moving the first Black family into the White House. Electing a Black president? A Black commander in chief? It’s trippy. The energy is unprecedented. America is on the brink of experiencing a national miracle, a colossal shift, a psychological breakdown and breakthrough. It’s a new perspective and brand-new fucking day. The adrenaline is loaded. Barack Obama is the man and almost every Black person’s main man. Black folks on buses and in barbershops, on street corners and in beauty salons, by the water cooler and in saloons, in checkout lines and the food stamp office, at the bank and the chicken spot, at church and coffee shops, everybody, everywhere is pouring the tea, philosophizing, psychoanalyzing, and prophesying about the meaning of it all. What if he actually wins? Will America really let that happen? Will they assassinate him if he gets too close to winning? Is he a puppet? Is he a Tom? Is he a brotha or a fraud? And we all have something to say about his wife, Michelle, whose presence and essence speaks volumes. Hands down by unanimous decision, he is with a Black queen, a sistah from the South Side of Chicago, a statuesque, dark brown mocha-skinned ’round-the-way sistah girl with a phat booty… and she’s brilliant. Word on the street, on the underground low, is she validated his Blackness and authenticated his brotha status by helping him pass the Black-enough-for-Black-folks litmus test.

  Some of us are still not sure how he’ll lean, having a white momma and all. It could go either way. He could do a Clarence Thomas and flip the script and go Whiteyville on us. He could be one of the “I’m not one of them” self-loathing sucka types who try to prove they’re whiter than white folks to be accepted and appear safe enough for white folks to like. My daddy calls them Oreos, Black on the outside but white on the inside of their heart, mind, and spirit. The hood is buzzing with theories. And if having a very Black, indisputably superbad sista for his wife wasn’t enough to clutch the pearls, he also has two beautiful Black baby girls twirling gorgeous natural hair with cornrows, twists, and afro puffs, looking like my cousins and me. It is just so much to take in, the enormity of it all. I’m convinced it’s visual kryptonite for racist white folks, triggering a self-imploding, terrifying shock to their psyche. But for the vast majority of the ’groid crunktastic brothas and sistas, it’s a refreshing reminder of Black superpotential. It’s a phenomenon so stunning on multiple levels that I can actually see Black folks walking a little taller this season. I do believe the sleeping giants are stirring.

  I bring into class the red, white, and blue November issue of VIBE magazine with Obama on the cover. In a strategic effort to reach out to young, urban Black voters, Barack has written an open letter to the magazine’s readers. He goes hip-hop. It’s a brilliant strategy. Inside the issue, there are ninety-nine different celebrity-artists commenting about Barack Obama and what his nomination and potential election means to them. It’s a genius endorsement campaign from hip-hop luminaries like Jay-Z, Nas, Ludacris, Young Jeezy, Q-Tip, CeeLo, Plies, Common, Lil Boosie, Russell Simmons, Bun B, Fat Joe, Scarface, Dead Prez, and more. It is an amazing, powerful chess move on Obama’s part and, damn, it’s sure delicious to watch him eat up the crusty old white pieces for lunch by gaining youth power, getting up-and-coming generations galvanized, and changing the game. Barack is
like turbo Pac-Man. I bring my enthusiasm to the class and develop several lesson plans using Obama for the social studies curriculum. For starters, I read Obama’s open letter to generate a dialogue about this historic candidacy and I work in some vocabulary words from the article. Some of my students listen intently, some talk, and some are falling asleep. Shahteik just stares at me, not listening a lick. He’s daydreaming. I can tell by the glazed look. Lord, please don’t let it be about me. My feminine wiles and spidey-senses tell me this dusty rug rat is fantasizing. It’s making me uncomfortable. I clap my hands two times to snap him out of it. “Shahteik, pay attention!”

  I instruct the guys to copy the vocabulary words from the board and write a sentence for each word. Tyquan finishes first and barrels up to my desk.

  “What’s up, scrap!” he says to me.

  Sarcastically, I look behind me, then to the right and left of me, looking for the person he could be talking to. I try to ignore him but he persists: “Scrap, what’s up, you ignoring me?”

  “Tyquan, I am not a scrap of anything, so please don’t refer to me as that.”

  “Aww, Ms. P, scrap is good. That means you like one of the homies, you down. Scrap ain’t for everybody, but you my peoples, so, you scrap,” he says, turning to his buddy Fred. “Yo, scrap, tell Ms. P scrap is a compliment. She think I’m swindling.”

  Raheim chimes in, “Scrap mean you cool, Ms. P. It’s hood talk.”

  Fred adds, “That means you good, Ms. P, you scrap… you good.”

  “I appreciate the compliment, but I’d rather not be called scrap; Ms. P is just fine.”

  Tyquan is slightly disappointed. “Aww, scrap, I mean Ms. P… I got you, I got you. But Ms. P, can I read that VIBE magazine? I finished my vocabulary. You know me. I do my work and finish first all the time, Ms. P, you know that.”

  Tyquan is right. But I know good and damn well that if I give him the magazine, the Bosses will confiscate it from Tyquan before he can even sit down, guaranteeing they won’t even attempt to do work. I have a quid pro quo policy in my class. If they want something from me, they have to give something to me in return. It’s my own way of negotiating extra classwork out of them.

  “Tyquan, you know how it goes, quid pro quo. I’ll let you read the magazine on two conditions.”

  “Anything, Ms. P, you know I got you. I do my work anyway, so it ain’t nothing. What’s the deal?”

  “First, you are not to let anyone else read it because I know the other guys are going to be all over you once I give you the magazine.”

  “Ms. P, I’mma move my seat. I’m not even going to sit near them. I got you. I’mma sit in the back all by myself.”

  Magazines are a commodity in jail. They’re a cheap thrill, full of pictures, especially VIBE, with the big-booty vixens and sexy advertisements in the back. And it’s like CNN for the hood, with all the latest hip-hop celebrity news, including breakups, hookups, and beefs. It’s the closest thing they have to cable and it plugs them back into the world they’ve been disconnected from since their arrest.

  “And the second stipulation is you have to read Barack Obama’s letter and write a short paragraph summarizing in your own words what you think Senator Obama is saying to voters.”

  Tyquan chirps, “That’s all? Shoot, that ain’t nothing. I got you, scrap.”

  Before I can open my mouth, Tyquan blurts out, “Psyche, psyche, Ms. P, my beautiful Black queen.”

  I curl my lips. “I want my paragraph, Tyquan, don’t play. I know a swindle when I hear it.”

  Tyquan struts to the back of the room like a kid who just won a prize at the Coney Island arcade. Chest poked out. The Bosses inquire why he moved his seat away from them and they motion for him to bring the magazine over to their station. I cut my eye at Tyquan and he replies diplomatically, “Naw, scrap, Ms. P got me doing an assignment. She got me over here writing; this ain’t leisure time, scrap, believe that.”

  I expect to get a half-ass, get-this-lady-out-of-my-face rushed and raggedy paragraph from Tyquan. I figure he’ll write a simple line or two so he can hurry up and get to the pictures and read the tabloid junk. Fuck it, as long as he’s reading, occupied, and not acting up, then anything he writes will suffice for today. It’s a 180 from earlier, so this is also my subtle way of rewarding him for better behavior and giving him a treat to soothe his rough morning. A visual lollipop.

  Tyquan hands in more than I expected. And this is why I spoil him. What he wrote is so heartfelt that I beam with pride and ask him to write a longer letter so I can send it to the editor, because it is that damn good. I give him a couple of notes, telling him to include more of his personal feelings about the potential of having the first Black president. I also tell him to reflect on what this presidency means to a kid from the inner city who’s currently in jail. Tyquan is filled with confidence and a sense of duty. He writes down my notes with a furrowed brow, salutes me like a general, and marches off on the mission to complete the assignment. I push and he climbs.

  Darnel, a quiet new student who sits alone, asks if he can read the magazine after Tyquan finishes. I give him the same assignment and again, to my surprise, like Tyquan, Darnel far surpasses my expectation. I overestimated their apathy toward the significance of this election and, in turn, they humbled me. I stand corrected—the rascals do give a damn about Obama.

  Darnel makes it a point to separate himself from the riffraff by telling me he’s from a stable two-parent middle-class household and has enough high school credits to graduate. “I already took my SATs for college, miss. I really want to go to Howard. I pray everything works out. My dad got me a paid lawyer. It’s in God’s hands, I guess.” Darnel’s been at Rikers for two weeks and is waiting to be bailed out any day now. But, for the time he’s with me, I have the kid writing every chance I get, holding him to a higher standard, because he can handle it… and he’ll definitely need it going into college.

  My impromptu lesson has me feeling bubbly. I’m so excited about the success of the assignment, I want to skip through the halls and proclaim, “My boys give a damn about Obama! They like him, they like him!” I’m on a roll and get other students involved with the assignment. I tell the guys I can’t guarantee anything, but their voices are strong enough to warrant publishing, so, with their permission, I will submit their letters to the editor at VIBE magazine. I’mma roll the dice for my rug rats. Their voices matter.

  Student Letters to Obama

  From watching campaigns and reading newspapers and articles out of magazines, to my understanding the world is a disaster. The only way to make a difference in this world would be to vote for a president, a good president we can count on. This world needs a president who is going to change the way things run and make life better, not a president who’s going to make things worse. I think Obama should be elected as president because he’s a very intelligent man and he knows what’s best for our country. He seems like he cares and makes a lot of sense in what he says in his campaigns. It’s about time we see something different and live the life we’re supposed to live as human beings. As an adolescent being in and out of jail since 14, it makes me proud to see a Black man running for president. I think this is what African Americans were waiting for, over centuries, and our people deserve to get a chance to see how Obama will make the world better. Come November 4, when Obama gets elected, that’s when he’ll show the world a better way.

  I would like to thank Obama because he showed me that I can be anything I want to be no matter the circumstances. I always thought jail would set me back and there would never be another chance to get on track, but seeing Obama run for president makes me more proud and makes me more confident to come home and follow my goals.

  Timothy (17 years old)

  Hi my name is Tyquan from Brooklyn NY. I live in the projects in Crown Heights, but currently I’m on Rikers Island C-74 adolescent building. I read almost every VIBE magazine and I came across the VIBE magazine with Barack Obama on the cover and
I was very inspired by his letter to the people in our nation and I feel that Blacks, whites and Hispanics should take interest in his letter. After I read the letter, I came to the conclusion that Barack Obama is trying to open Black, white and hispanic eyes so that they can see the bigger picture, which is our nation is at its worse and he’s trying to change things around for the better, for Black people’s communities and to help Black people live a better life than the one we live today. The main point that he’s trying to get across is before anything can be changed, we as people have to go out and vote and support and believe in a strong Black leader. Seeing Barack Obama about to be elected for president inspires me, an inmate at Rikers Island, to believe that I can achieve anything that I set my mind to because Obama set the way by showing a good example for Black Americans. As a child I believed that it wasn’t possible to have a Black President until Obama came on the scene and has a chance to make history, so I support him 100%. Obama changed my thoughts about Black people because all you see on the news is the negative images of Black people shooting, killing, and abusing other people, and people believe what the media tries to make us out to be, but Obama is encouraging Black people to believe that we can become someone in life.

  P.S. I hope everybody that’s eligible to vote goes out November 4th, 2008 and votes, because I am. Tyquan 4 Obama.

  I’ll holla.

  Prince Tha Don, the wavy one

  Tyquan (18 years old)

  The Barack Obama letter is deep. Obama is right; he can’t change this crucial world alone. He needs our help, the people of America. Together we can make a change and let everything bad that happened in the past stay in the past. Obama will affect the world in a great way. He says he can’t do it alone, but together we can change the economy. The Obama letter leads me to believe that we can make the impossible, possible.