Pride under Pressure: A Ritual for Freedom
Letting three drops of water hit the ground, I name the ancestors Pauli Murray, Audre Lorde, Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvester, James Baldwin, Bayard Rustin, Marielle Franco and the lagbas lagbas in my lineage. I also pause to remember all the unnamed and poorly archived people who have lived and loved boldly but are not remembered publicly.
I’m asking you
and those who love me
and are rooting for me
and those who are rooting for us
to support this ritual. If you do, then say Ashe and come dance.
I’ve put down some black eyed pea fritters, Acarajé, some hush puppies around a fried snapper. Bacalaitos and arepitas de yucca. Tortillas, pupusas, tamales and fry bread. Arroz con gandules. Codfish and Ackee. Panapen. Stuffed grapeleaves. Naan. Curry. Maqluba. Miso and tofu.
I know you are hungry. Go thank the chefs who made this food. Go thank the food itself. Don’t forget the soil that held seeds through to the harvest. Don’t forget the water, sun and moon that supported the bloom. Don’t forget the stewards that planted and harvested what you are about to eat. Go serve someone, an elder or a young one and then find a place to sit so you can enjoy the meal.
I have three bata drums, resonant and eloquent. Three congas, tightened and fluent. Three cajones, booming and true. Three atabaques urging us on. The berimbaus alternate between Angola and Sao Bento depending on our moods. A full batería moves through blocos and sambas. And of course a primo and tamboras. The world itself is a drum. Move your feet.
There are musicians that you will know by their callouses, especially the ones who play loud and fast with showy arms. They are eager to play but respectfully take their turns keeping the rhythms constant and driving. We need energy. Brenda Navarrete and Roman Diaz are directing the percussion and the singing as only they can, weaving the riffs together and making sure the grooves are clear enough for the dancers to pick up.
You can grab a shekere and stand to the left. The cowbells and claves are towards the front. The pandeiros are to the right. The guiros and güiras are here too. And so are the brass and strings. Por qué no? Y el acordeón.
When you are ready, find a space next to someone who smiles at you. Warmth and connection keep us alive. Dance. Communicate. Express. Cleanse. Heal.
If it’s Yanvalou, undulate and let Dambala take the venom of rejection off your back.
If it’s Gaga, pound the ground with your feet and shake off fear.
If it’s cha cha lokafun, you know the step, it’s like a rocking chair and the song will tell you if you are clearing obstacles with Oggun, bringing lightning down to burn off shackles with Oya and Chango, or using the garabato to make strong decisions towards our elevated collective destinies with Eleggua.
You will be called on to enter the batey and improvise. Use a skirt if you want to, or a shawl, or your finger, your hat.
Move the dust around and tap the next dancer in the samba circle.
Practice this sequence: ginga, au, queda de rins, negativa, rolê, armada, bênção.
Spin around the central pillar or the bonfire. Eepa hey Yansan.
O mío Yemaya.
O feliki Iya, O feliki Iya, e lade Oshun.
Hips, hips, hips.
Do you know the song? Sing it. When someone is asking you to show up, to participate, to contribute, it will only make you feel better if you respond. Join the Coro. Mouth the words until you learn them. Doing nothing feels wrong in your body. It’s called call and response.
We are here.
We all have gifts.
Lay on the hands.
Give rogations.
Cast the shells.
Shuffle the deck.
Gather the herbs.
Do the work.
Do the work.
Do the work.
It was never really about being complicit and complacent.
Here there are no entrance fees. No need for sponsorships that support you if you sell this or if you don’t do that or don’t include them. We don’t need to get a permit.
No disposable branded swag.
What do we do with it now? Bury it. Burn it.
Who made it?
Were they paid well?
Did they get time off?
Is it toxic?
Gone, the sneers. Who’s out? Who’s in? Who rules the culture? But do they look good? What’s their story? Is it palatable, relatable, shareable?
This ritual is a spell against violence, death and neglect. It is our responsibility to tend the altars. We have so many dead that haven’t made it to the quilt. It is up to us to remember the unnamed, place a marker and tend the forgotten graves. We have to make new genealogies and birth our own ancestors, repopulate the archives with what we know had to be true. Biomythologize like Audre taught us to. We have to make every public and private space free of exploitation, want and despair.
It was always about dignity and joy.
DENIED entrance to law school, DENIED accommodations for her cancer treatments, Denied a platform at the pride rally, DENIED justice for her death, DENIED a church home and respect from the music label, DENIED initial publication of “Giovanni’s Room,” DENIED a chance to speak at the march on Washington, DENIED the opportunity to see her dream of a better Rio free of militarization and violence.
Strengthened by our recitations and acknowledgements of our power to overcome, this ritual will ready us for what we must do today to make rest, repair and regeneration possible in our futures to come.
The visions come quickly. They take over our bodies. We are cleansed. We are free.
Pauli Murray is writing us a sermon surrounded by piles of books:
“I have been cast aside, but I sparkle in the darkness.
I have been slain but live on in the rivers of history.
I seek no conquest, no wealth, no power, no revenge;
I seek only discovery
Of the illimitable heights and depths of my own being.”
Audre Lorde is swimming in the Caribbean, letting the tides calm her breathing, laughing:
“Sometimes we are blessed with being able to choose
the time, and the arena, and the manner of our revolution,
but more usually
we must do battle where we are standing.”
Sylvia Rivera is building us permanent housing while guiding our work:
“This movement has become so capitalist... this is no longer my pride, I gave them their pride but they have not given me mine.”
Marsha P Johnson is helping us rename ourselves so we can “pay it no mind”:
“You never completely have your rights, one person, until you all have your rights.”
Sylvester left us his royalties to continue our AIDS activism and encourages us with a piercing falsetto and a gardenia in his hair:
“I’ve always lived out my fantasies of being whatever I wanted to be — I did all the things that I thought stars do.”
James Baldwin is writing us letters to learn by heart so we can remember the words when we face the strongest oppression.
“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”
Bayard Rustin is organizing our resistance.
“You have to join every other movement for the freedom of people.”
Marielle Franco is reminding us how to use our Ashe in the streets as more than a protest, but rather a remaking of reality:
““The roses of resistance are born in the asphalt. We receive roses, but we will be with our fists clenched speaking of our existence against the push and pull that affects our lives.”
Do you feel it?
We can make a different world where all the harm that has been done by decree, act, order, veto by all the agents who have “ just done their jobs” and have “capitulated” in advance can be repaired and undone.
Pat Parker wrote the poem “Movement in Black” to help us create a choral narrative of Black movements that can hold the untold stories that are not in the banned history books and some that are, the forgotten stories and the stories that haven’t been told yet ending with the invitation for us to say “and me” writing ourselves into the poem with our specific realities and our survival. As the ritual ends we are all embodied testimonies to our survival. We sign. We sing. We roll our wheelchairs back and forth. We dance. We are free.
We speak in all the languages of the world. First in Dine, Maya, Zapotec, Taino, then in all the languages in Abya Yala, then in all the migrant tongues like Spanish, Haitian Creole, Tagalog, Mandarin, Japanese, Hindi, Urdu, Arabic, Yoruba, Twi, Swahili, Hebrew because we are in every community although we express ourselves differently.
We will use that freedom to create a cycle of care across our life spectrums that is in partnership with land stewardship in a way that cools our planet down and makes it possible for us to be.
We are here.
We are free.
This is a collage that walks with the word offerings above. It includes from left to right: a staircase in an airport in Brazil painted in the colors of the pride flag that includes the trans flag colors and a brown and black stripe; thin, black trees in a forest of their abundant green leaves with the sun’s rays coming through; a framboyan tree’s branches in fiery bloom and the sky above them as seen from below; a twigged wreath heart on a gray fence, a close up detail of a purple, lavender, magenta quilt with resplendent flowers in gold thread spaced throughout, a close up detail of a mosaic tile of three bright flowers in yellow, orange and red, a soft, white cloud making it’s way across the a sky of summer blue. a close up detail of paper roses on a pillar as photographed from below-in the background a raised cemetery with blue skies.