I'm just here.
Black where I'm meant to be and our ableist government
¿What you heard?
Portugal started the triangle trade so has a lot of experience transporting Black folk between Africa and America, but I bought Iberia instead. It was cheaper than TAP.
Going out of Africa was treacherous, but going back was actually pretty nice.
No one got dysentery and died.
No one was tortured and died.
No one jumped overboard and died.
No one was murdered for insurance money.
They gave me a pillow and a blanket and my own seat facing a screen, where I watched Dear Santa while Spanish indentured sky slaves served me chicken and pineapple juice and KitKats and banana bread.
They all had nametags on.
I liked Paula. She was kinda cute, but I did wonder whether Paula was her Kunta name or her Toby name.
I was too shy to ask.
In this country, when someone says how you doing?, you reply maa ngi fi rekk, which literally means I’m just here.
It signifies I’m good because I am just here as opposed to elsewhere, where it might not be so good.
I am just here as opposed to the war.
I am just here as opposed to the hospital.
I am just here as opposed to the grave.
I am just here in Senegal as opposed to America.
What you seen??
DEAR SANTA (2024) was panned by contemporary critics, but only a year later, this disability odyssey takes on an entirely new meaning.
The film is premised on a letter to Santa accidentally addressed to Satan, who appears as a red-eyed, goat-horned Jack Black.
In modern times, the white, dyslexic protagonist is on the losing side of The Battle of Calibri, where the New Romans have won.
This is a very white movie. The only significant characters of color are literally the hero honky dork’s Black best friend, his Black child therapist, and the lil Asian schoolgirl he’s hankering after. :/
I actually love how white this dyslexia story is though because it reveals the Caucasian collateral damage of this white supremacist government’s lunatic War on Diversity.