The host linked back to the actual topic. But Raptor figured since she’d planted her poison seed, she was coming back soon enough to water it.
HOST
Mr. Ani, how can you justify asking tax-payers to pay for a school that would exclude White students from attending?
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
You should fire your whole research staff. We haven’t said one word about excluding anybody—
HOST
Really? So you’d be wide open to mainstream children?
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
“Mainstream.” Of course. Completely in favour of that. Long overdue. White students have been the victims of Eurocentric education for the entire history of this country—
HOST
So you want to replace one bias for another?
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
If you think one school could ever replace this entire country’s worth of bias, all of corporate media’s worth of bias, I’d say you need to enroll in a course on reality—
HOST
But that’s the result, isn’t it? Fragmenting the community on race lines? How comfortable would mainstream students even be in a school where—
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
Comfortable? How many minutes in your entire career have you devoted to whether our children are comfortable in your schools? Ten? One? Zero?
HOST
Isn’t it that type of thinking that’s the problem? “Our” kids versus “your” kids? Isn’t it one of your African proverbs that it takes an entire village to raise a child—
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
Then why are your village schools failing kids from our village so badly? Maybe “It takes a whole village to depress a child.”
HOST
What about family responsibility? Personal responsibility? If all these children care about is the latest gangster rap album or finding ways to make their pants sag
even lower, how is that the school system’s fault?
“Ho, you did not just say that!”
Sister Seshat’s words.
Whole room turned to look at her.
Jackal smirked.
“Brother Jackal,” said the Sbai, “when you’re right, you’re right.”
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
What about government responsibility? We pay taxes! These schools have been failing our kids for generations! Unless, what, you think they’re failing because they’re genetically inferior—
HOST
Doesn’t take long for you to play the race card—
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
—otherwise why’re our kids disproportionately doing poorly? Supposedly—
HOST
—but really, on this issue, when are you not—
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
—everyone in this country believes in a free market and competition and all that, so maybe if we have our own school, that’ll force the public system to step up, compete with us, and do a better job—
HOST
Why should the taxpayer trust you, or anyone with some sort of racial agenda, to operate a—
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
The proof is in the pudding on racial agendas, namely our kids failing and you not caring. So it’s your racial agenda. We’d rather not be in the position to have no choice but to set up a school. It’s a huge expenditure of labour, resources—
HOST
So what’s your motive, then? Profiting from the children?
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
Profit? Are you for real? Unlike the public system, we actually care about African kids—and not in some do-goodery, liberal, ‘aren’t I a saviour’ way about helping poor-little-pagan-babies in some so-called African village in some unnamed country—
HOST
You’re quite hostile. Is that the kind of attitude teachers should—
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
—trying to help real kids, right here, right now, and if some people don’t want us to have our own schools, then step up and fix your own.
HOST
In the meantime you’re urging segregation as the solution—
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
Evidently you don’t know history or you wouldn’t even ask that question! That’s not what segregation means—
CONCERNED PARENT
And that’s the problem right there, Mary, is that this is turning back the clock to the 1950s—
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
Words have meanings! You don’t even know the meaning of the word, but you’re throwing it around like—
HOST
Go ahead, Mr. Listerveldt—
CONCERNED PARENT
—in the American South, where the races were separated, and why would anybody in their right mind want to—
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
—segregation means somebody tells you you can’t go here, or live there, or take that job—
HOST
Mr. Ani, you said we need to attend to the meanings of words, but my producer is telling me, he’s just looked it up, Googled the meaning, I mean, of segregation, and it’s, yeah—here it is, from Wikipedia, and you can’t tell me that’s the government—
CONCERNED PARENT
Ha ha, exactly—
Raptor: “What’s that even supposed to mean?”
HOST
—quote: the separation of different racial groups in daily life, such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a washroom, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home. Segregation may be mandated by law or exist through social norms—
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
We’re not talking about passing any laws, and nobody’s gonna be denied entrance to or be forced to go to this school on the basis of race, so why are we even—
HOST
It’s not my definition, Mr. Ani—
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
Right, right, your wiki-research staff. So when you leave work tonight, are you going to your home, or your producer’s home? Is that segregation? No, it’s separation—
HOST
So you’re a separatist, then? A Black separatist?
“A-a-a-a-aw!” wailed the group, like they’d just seen a b-baller throw an elbow into somebody’s eye when the ref wasn’t looking. Raptor had to fight not to kick in the TV screen.
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
Let’s talk real separatism! Just in Edmonton Public Schools
alone, you’ve got a Science Alternative school, a so-called Traditional School, a performing arts school, a Waldorf school, a Canadian Studies school, Army Cadets school, a Hebrew Bilingual school, Distance Learning school and a Music school. Two dance schools, two Aboriginal heritage, three International Spanish Academy, three all-girls’ schools, three “arts core” schools. Four—
HOST
All open to everyone, of any background—
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
Even the girls’ schools? Four Sports Alternative, four Ukrainian, four Arabic bilingual, four Academic Alternative, five German bilingual, seven Home Schooling schools, seven Christian, seven Advanced Placement—
HOST
Congratulations, Mr. Ani, on your ability to memorise long lists—
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
—almost done—nine pre-Advanced Placement, twelve Mandarin bilingual and eighteen French Immersion. And that doesn’t include the Catholic schools, and there’re ninety-six of them in this city alone, none of them private—all of them paid for by all taxpayers!
HOST
But you don’t have to be Catholic to attend!
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
Yeah, but non-Catholics can’t teach at Catholic schools, right? That’s legalised religious employment discrimination right there. And if you’re a gay Catholic who’s out, then you’re really out, as in fired—
HOST
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms grants freedom of religion, but it doesn’t say a word about racial separatism—
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
That’s the fourth time you’ve sai
d that, and the fourth time I’ve told you our school would be open to everyone, so please stop deceiving—
HOST
So you say now, but how do we know two years from now—
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
Then let’s talk about Catholic schools which’ve been running here more than a century. Almost a hundred tax-paid schools just in this town alone, which’s gotta be at least a thousand across the country, and probably way higher. You’re accusing us of doing something, something nefarious before we’ve even got one school—
HOST
Nobody’s accusing you of any—
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
—and meanwhile the Catholic Church has had how many pedophile priests? And residential school abuse scandals for horribly abusing First Nations children for generations? And you want to go after us? For one school? And we haven’t even started it yet?
HOST
So to get this school of yours, step one is throwing the Catholics under the bus. What’s your next tactic? Anti-semitism?
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
I can’t believe you just—
HOST
Professor Sanford, how do you think—
PROFESSOR SANFORD
Well, I—
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
—demand you take back that vicious, utterly misleading smear—
HOST
Please, you’ve had plenty of time to talk, please don’t try to silence the women on this panel—
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
I’m not gonna get shut up after you try to libel me—
HOST
It was only a hypothetical—
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
—a completely misleading, manipulative—
HOST
Misleading? What about the anti-White rhetoric all over your Street Falcons web pages? Calling White people “devils”—
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
That is a total lie! We never use the word “devil”—we talk about Destroyers, but Destroyers can be—
HOST
A rose by any other name. But you admit you’re anti-White—
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
We’re not anti-White and we’re not pro-Black! We’re anti-destructivity and pro-creativity! It’s not about race. It’s about deeds. Action. All we want is to build justice, prosperity and beauty for all human—
HOST
Isn’t this really an attempt to set up some sort of Black Liberation Theology madrassa?
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
First, there’s nothing wrong with Black Liberation Theology, whatever you think it is, because you obviously don’t know what you’re talking about if you think it’s something bad. Second, how could I be any kind of theologian? I’m an atheist—
Raptor’s peripheral: Seshat. Jaw open. Irises shrunk. He wondered, What’s the problem?
YIMUNHOTEP ANI
—this is obviously, text-book discriminatory. It’s about your fears. Fears of African people. Why should we pay for your bigotry and your pathology?
Seshat got up from the circle of chairs, yanked out her phone.
While everyone else was compass-needled TV-north, Raptor watched Seshat punching keys, shoulders hunched, eyes glassy.
“Brother Maã, it’s me . . . . Yeah, yeah, that’s why I’m calling. Can you meet? . . . Say, eight o’clock? . . . Exactly. Fires’re burning. Got maybe a day to put em out—”
Saw Raptor staring at her. Moved further out of earshot, out of view.
He didn’t know where it was coming from, but the crackling hurt his ears, the ash burned his nostrils, and the smell of charred human meat turned his gut to roiling.
8.
“The Fortress is burning,” said Seshat.
Had her arms crossed, leaning back in her chair at Moon’s kitchen table. Raptor listened from the couch.
“All right.” Moon sighed. “Let’s hear it.”
Wednesday evening. Data Salvation Laboratories was closed for the night, and two Falcon teens whose pay was topped up by youth employment grants were running the Hyper-Market.
Seshat, fingers against the table: tap-tap-tap-tap. “I’ve gotten probably forty calls about your atheist comment, and that’s just from people who had my number.”
“So?”
“‘So’?” said Seshat.
“‘So’?”
Maãhotep, the ever-put-together brother, wasn’t put-together. Jacket off, tie off, shirt sleeves rolled up. Under the table, a toenail poked out of a new hole in one of Maã’s socks.
“So you had to know,” said Maã, “how any kind of atheism reference would affect the Somalis backing the Africentric school project—”
“That school was never supposed to be religious!”
“Doesn’t matter, Moon!” said Seshat. “They were holding out hope they could steer it that way, or, or, or maybe just have some kind of, I don’know, school chapel or prayer time set aside, but with you talking like that—”
“Brother Moon never said he wasn’t an atheist!”
All eyes clicked on Raptor. Wasn’t like him to leap in when the elders were in a war shenu, but was he just supposed to let them beat on him like that?
Moon said, “Thank you.”
“And you never said you weren’t a Muslim, either,” said Maã.
Seshat: “And you know damn well most of those Somalis, especially whenever they saw you rockin a kufi, just assumed you were—”
Moon: “So because they assumed—”
“Don’even try that! They’re saying you lied to them, and it doesn’t matter what the reality is now.”
“Before,” said Maã, “they could tell themselves our Kemetic imagery was just for fun, just Africentric history. Now they’re saying we’re pagan idolators!”
“Right. The pagan atheist. Maã, you’re a Muslim. Can’t you—”
Maã’s glare froze Moon’s words mid air. They dropped to the table, shattered.
Raptor’s skin scorched. What’d he mean? That Somalis knew Maã was . . . was a . . . .
But he hadn’t told anyone, and Maã sure as hell hadn’t been broadcasting that around other Muslims, so—
“And it gets worse,” said Seshat. “Our City funding’s gone.”
Moon swallowed hard, like he was suddenly extremely thirsty.
“Alderman Brothers told me he fought to save it, but—”
“But who knows?” said Maã. “City’s going to the polls in weeks, and he practically had you muralled all over his electoral yacht. And now with the Somali vote distancing itself from you—”
“It’s really that serious with the Somalis?”
“Yes!” said Seshat. “Are you listening? Are you hearing me about City funding? That means the job grants are gone! And so’s the Street Laboratory!”
“Then we sue them!” said Moon.
“On what basis?” said Maã.
“You’re the lawyer!”
“That’s right. And I’d be going up against the best firms that a million tax-payers can hire—”
Down the stairwell, the door clicked and clacked. Footsteps, running up. Araweelo. Her eyes were grim.
Flashing Maã and Seshat a quick hello, she ran over to kiss her son on the cheek before pulling Moon aside to his PC.
Everyone pretended not to be eavesdropping, but they all were. Glancing instead of staring.
Moon studied the paper screen stonily, then drooped his head.
Araweelo crushed herself against Moon. He held her limply, then walked to the window.
The Alchemists of Kush Page 36