Unfortunately (a Kids from Bayview story)

Isaiah seeks guidance from the past as he prepares to deliver a protest speech

Unfortunately (a Kids from Bayview story)

by Jawanza D. Barial-Lumumba (https://www.alongandwanzyroad.com/)

It was the summer of 2003 and Isaiah Greene was a wreck the night before the protest. This was by no means the first nor likely the last protest that the community would be having, coming together on the streets, rallying to decommission the toxic power plant that the City was maintaining and advocating to cleanup Isaiah’s neighborhood. And though his mother had only moved Isaiah and his little brother out to San Francisco a few years prior, the community of people that surrounded them in Bayview had made this their home.

Unfortunately, their home was a toxic waste site thanks to this power plant – as well as the neighboring shipyard – in their mostly Black, Brown, and Asian community. And one of the community forums Isaiah had joined at the community college had asked him to give a speech, that linked to the history of their neighborhood, and Isaiah often did in spaces he felt insecurities prickling at his skin, he overcommitted to it.

Now, the night before, he was flipping through textbooks and newspaper articles he had checked from the library to piece together the history and theme for what the community needed to hear. As his little brother saw him feverishly reading, his brother handed Isaiah a journal – more of a spell book from Nana Jenkins, the auntie of their downstairs neighbor. Isaiah’s brother had been borrowing it to explore a particular spell, but he flipped to a loose page, which his brother mentioned finding some sort speech Nana Jenkins had written at a protest of her own back in the day. Reading it, it spoke to a word everyone in the Bayview Hunters Point community was done, regularly hearing:

“Unfortunately, the City of San Francisco was unable to approve the requests for resources improvements in Bayview for public transit, affordable housing, and schools;

Unfortunately, city council has voted to maintain the Power Plant in Bayview, as the health concerns provided cannot be directly linked to it;

Unfortunately, the glyphs and symbols that have been appearing across homes in the neighborhood cannot be prioritized for removal by the City;

Unfortunately, the school that got hit by the fire last year could not be prioritized by the school district and plans to rebuild it are on hold indefinitely;

Unfortunately, the liquor store on the corner of Jennings & Revere is the best source of fresh fruit in the neighborhood;

Unfortunately, the odds of kids like you leaving a neighborhood like Bayview by choice are slimmer than the odds of you owning a home in a city like San Francisco;

Unfortunately, the police have not found the driver of the hit and run that killed your cousin;

Unfortunately, those redevelopers are wanting to build condos around Candlestick Park where the 49ers play, not the dilapidated houses that kids like you live in;

Unfortunately, there has been no sightings or confirmations of the animal that is Indian Basin, supposedly snatching up neighborhood children;

Unfortunately, the City of San Francisco has no plans to ever consider Bayview a vibrant space and shall remain listed as “under construction” on all its tourism maps;

And unfortunately, there will be more disappointments coming to our neighborhood until the day that the Black and Brown faces no longer breathe life into homes of Bayview Hunters Point.”

*

Isaiah quietly knocked a familiar rhythm against their downstair neighbor’s door, and when it opened, Janice Jenkins emerged, her arms crossed almost as crossed as the expression that had cemented across her face. Before Isaiah could even get a word in, Janice snatched her auntie’s journal from Isaiah’s hands. “For the record, I gave this to Lil Greene to write down and practice a few incantations before he headed to the university in the Fall.”

Isaiah chuckled, pulling the loose folded piece of paper from his back pocket. “I’m not here for the intervention on the magicks you’re trying to teach Jeremiah.” Carefully, Isaiah and Janice exchanged the loose page for Nana’s spell book, and Janice unfolded it curiously. “Jer offered me this, as I work on my speech for the protest tomorrow. It’s uh… nothing new, since unfortunately is still a commonplace phrase around here.” Janice glanced at the page, familiar with it, and her brown-emerald eyes returned to Isaiah’s furrowing face. Janice raised a brow, a small smirk forming, waiting for the question she knew was coming. Isaiah sighed, before asking, “So… where’s the rest?”

The smile widened. “So… this isn’t a speech.” Janice handed the page back to Isaiah. “Like everything else in this book, its rooted in magick—or, uh, would energies and intention-setting be easier for you to digest?”

“No, I’d still woo-sah that away.”

“Fine, well to be more specific, it’s a prayer cementing our current state, a prayer to be heard to our ancestors, meant to resonate with those around the speaker.”

A frown joined Isaiah’s furrowing face. “I don’t understand – this prayer is too specifically worded, and unlike the rest of the incantations, it’s in English.”

This time it was Janice who sighed, snatching the page out of Isaiah’s with one hand, and leading the dubious young man into her family’s apartment with the other. She seated Isaiah on her family’s little couch, before she stepped away without saying a word to the bookshelf and began hunting for something hidden behind one of the books. While Janice hunted, Isaiah stared at the note, beginning to silently mouthing the words to see if any of this magick from these words was still resonating in them. Before he could finish, Janice snatched the page from Isaiah’s hands again, and replaced it with a Walkman and a cassette tape.

“It’s about pausing, focusing on the intention and energy and a bit of a rhythm that you’re wanting to invoke. As you reread the words, it allows you to revive the energy, intention, and rhythm needed to channel that which you originally poured into the words,” explained Janice, handing Isaiah a headset. “Nana offered these words on stage for herself, for our ancestors, and to resonate with the people around her – and after she finished recanting this, Nana felt the pull from the ancestors who guided her words that day—the rest of which you can listen to on this tape. Feel free to take it and the spell book back upstairs, but if you want to spark the fire that Nana Jenkins did, you may need my help to center yourself and do so.”

Jeremiah had spoken to Isaiah at length about the strange happenings that white people had been causing throughout Bayview and other parts of the city, rooted and what he and Janice and others believed to be magicks. Isaiah was lucky enough to have never bore witness to any of this nonsense, but their family prayed before meals, their family went to church—mostly on holidays or after being guilted, and they reflected on the power of the past, so would a prayer like this really harm him? To believe just a little more than he normally did.

“Well?” remarked Janice. “You can also just listen to the tape and write down whatever you want, but you seem to want something more than just words and a historical recap. What’s the matter?”

“What’s the matter is, what if, after all these years, the same issues your Nana was facing is the same unfortunate reality that we still operate in now?” concluded Isaiah. “And if it hasn’t changed enough now, then what intention or energy or whatever should I even focus on?”

“It sounds like you’re seeking an answer to your speech,” retorted Janice, “and as always, yall boys aren’t listening to what I’m saying. You need to invoke the intention you need to connect with the people and the ancestors. You don’t need to repeat back what Nana said that day – you need the word that we need today, that the ancestors are waiting for you to amplify.” She nudged her head out the window of the living room, looking out onto 3^rd Street, where a lively night in Bayview was unfolding before the protest. “So, what is the word our community is needing to hear? What is the intention you want to cast with your words?”

*

As Isaiah Greene approached the stage, page in hand, and looked out into the crowd of Black and Brown faces from throughout the Bayview community – he saw classmates, he saw neighbors, he saw outsiders, he people who deemed each other enemies calmly side-by-by, and even saw city officials, with disinterest diluting themselves. But in the crowd, Isaiah saw his mother and brother, and beside them, Janice and her friends and family. Neither Jeremiah nor Janice had Nana’s spellbook, but the page that Isaiah had held all the guidance and direction he needed. As the host announced his name and he stepped towards the mic, Isaiah unfolded the page, readying himself to revisit the word the residents of Bayview were done hearing spoken at them, and would now offer it as the weapon the community needed:

“Unfortunately, the Bayview Hunters Point community will not be erased by the City of San Francisco’s lack of resources, support, or prioritization;

Unfortunately, our community will be pushing back against redevelopers and people who want community to just be safe for them;

Unfortunately, our health and safety matters and we will not be silenced until health concerns like the Power Plant and the Shipyard are addressed;

Unfortunately, we not only see through the strange and bizarre actions of the white people coming into our community, but there are those among us stopping them;

Unfortunately, we know the history of Black neighborhoods, towns, and cities that once thrived and we will not like Bayview burn down to the ground get covered by a park or a lake;

Unfortunately, we will not forget those whose who’ve been shot or hurt or hit or left to die by systems and people who fear us and shout and chant the names of our siblings, of our children, of our parents, of our niblings, of our cousins, of our neighbors, of our loved ones;

Unfortunately, those who the City has already pushed out to Daily City or Oakland or even out of California will always carry Bayview Hunters Point in their hearts, and as they start to shine, they will aim their light back to their people still on 3^rd Street;

Unfortunately, there’s no magick spell that can make white people’s food taste better because the flavor and seasoning out here in D10 is gonna sink any whitey restaurant that tries to overtake our community;

Unfortunately, community casts the greatest magicks against the monsters and the oppressors and we will come together to continue to fight for ourselves, our family, our neighbors, and all the kids from Bayview!”

As Isaiah spoke his words, turning the same focused framing and phrases Nana had once used to rechannel her energies and intentions, Isaiah shared his prayer to his ancestors with community forum, channeling what he felt when he first put pen to paper not just with himself, but with everyone who cared to listening.

And as he spoke those words, the sensation that surged through him, surged through not only those there with him, but to an uncle who had passed years before and a friend who had only died two weeks ago and two young men Isaiah didn’t really know who got caught in a shootout. That was when he noticed people unfamiliar to him, yet spirits resonating familiar ties, seeing spirits rest a hand on someone’s shoulder, interweave their fingers today, others draping their arms around others—as he saw the spirit of Nana Jenkins appear beside Janice, who locked arms with her niece, playing her idle hand of Janice’s shoulder, he knew these were the loved ones lost to the great community. Unlike the everyone else in the audience, Janice sensed Nana, and they both stole a quick, quiet glance at one another, mirroring miraculous smiles, before looking back up at Isaiah. Nana gave him a proud and loving wink.

Isaiah knew whatever else this community forum had to share would be grounded in those who came before, those still with us, for the future Bayview they all knew they could co-create.

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