THE MULE & THE LLAMA
Last night I watched the final episode of EMPIRE. Having never seen the popular TV show before I thought I would watch and see what all the fuss was about. A poet should stay on top of this life as much as she can.
At the end of the special two-hour episode I clicked off the remote. I felt completely exhausted. Heavy. Like I had pulled something up a high hill, something that I didn't want to pull.
One scene in particular went inside me without permission and stayed all night and is still with me this morning. It's the scene where the lead female character, Cookie Lyon, and one of her son's girlfriends, two black women of different generations, fight.
They fight like two enraged pit bulls. It's an end of the world fight. A furious fight, one that a white male writer, who knows nothing and cares nothing about the love and respect Black women have for each other, has written. He has written it because it's the name of his TV game. In order to end on the highest ratings, in order to achieve the bag of gold, in order to be No. 1, in order to say thank you for the amazingly expensive Rolex watches all the EMPIRE staff and producers were given by FOX execs, as reward, for the great first season. He has to pull the mules of the world forward, pack their fronts and backs way down.
So fifteen million people watch two Black women fly through the air and beat each other down, like gladiators draped in stilettos and chinchilla. Fifteen million have paid to see wigs fly and bras torn. They want titties out but they might have to wait until next season for that. They fight this death fight over nothing, in order to win the ratings war. This is the scene that upgrades Zora's n***** woman as mule of the world to n***** woman as mule of the empire.
Two coiffed and beautiful Black women fight and attack each other with all the venom that many people believe Black people "naturally" have, stored up and waiting, with all the understanding that white TV and movie execs, run back and forth from their bank accounts, depositing, that old belief that Black people are so naturally "gifted" with raw explosive attitude. Back in scene, Lucious Lyon, Empire's TV Pharaoh, and his on-camera son, take a long time before separating the two women. It's no big deal. Because this "anger" is what Black women are mostly made of.
Who lets them go on and on? Is it the fifteen million of us watching? Is it, Oscar winning, Black director, Lee Daniels, who signals to let them go at it for a while? Two rounds? Three? Let the image of two Black and beautiful women fighting like dogs steep awhile longer inside the eyes of the millions. Who decides to let the fifteen million drink this long tall glass of black woman tea down good? Who decides to not separate them, yet, to let the image take hold, in order to drink the FOX Kool-Aid, down—all the way?
Two beautiful black women are set inside a boxing ring by FOX TV and Danny Strong, writer. No one is alarmed at their dogfight. Moments after they are finally pulled apart, their breath still in the quick of rise and fall, they casually and coherently launch into a discussion of mule-business, the making of millions— together.
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Last week I finally made it to Peru, my first visit to South America. My partner and I wanted to walk the steep steps of Machu Picchu, wanted to see the Andean mountains. The snowcapped glaciers are sadly, quickly, disappearing. I wanted to touch the Inca walls, whose perfection and seamless architecture nobody can truly explain even to this day. It was magical. Mysterious. Grounding. Joyful. We climbed Machu Picchu on day one and on day two returned to make the vibrant trek to the Sun Gate. I saw butterflies whose wings were periwinkle on one side and alabaster on another. Every time they came close my eyes tumbled along in the air with them. As we climbed back down from this great and sacred human place, my legs were humming, my heart happy and full of Black girl juice.
On the last day in Peru, in the beautiful old city of Cusco, the first capital of the Incas, I came face to face with a llama that brought me to my knees. He caught me all off guard as I came around the corner. I was not expecting his kind brown eyes to fixate on me – and stay. As I stood beside him, my arm draped down around his long soft neck, our similar hairstyles made both of us smile. While his owner continued to weave a baby alpaca scarf on the loom, I quietly leaned in to give him permission to sniff me out. He did. I could not keep my hands off of him. I was a little afraid he might bite but not too afraid to try. The Peruvians nearby started to laugh at me, whispering in Spanish and Quechua, pointing at me in a sweet knowing way.
My inhibition was gone. I wanted to know why the llama was staring at me without pause. I wanted to know why he wasn't afraid of me. Maybe it was our hair. Maybe something else was happening. Something I would never fully understand with my mind. Maybe it was the simple magic of Peru. What I thought about was this: All the times in my life when I had entered a room or a space and the other human faces there looked away from me, eyes dropping to the ground, as if they felt that I had come to start a fight.
The llama wasted no time, first sniffing behind my ear then nibbling my shirt near the shoulder, then finally taking his teeth and tugging at my locs, one by one. My partner stared at me while the camera rolled. She said she had watched the llama take me in, watched him quickly recognize me. Uninhibited and grateful, we both seemed. She said she learned some things about me she didn't know. When I look at these pictures from Peru, I learn some things too. I see the laughing face of a Black girl who sometimes feels more genuinely recognized by other life forms than by her own.