I Am Not Afraid!: In Loving Memory of Professor Derrick Bell

When everything in your life points in one direction, I suggest you get to stepping! This is my advice to you that I am currently taking myself. My friend Lurie Daniel-Favors relayed to me a metaphor about magnets. She said that a magnet attracts a nail because the currents are all flowing in one direction. The nail has just as much ability to attract, except that its currents are flowing in a bunch of different directions. I'm not saying it exactly right, but the point is: FOCUS! Focus is POWER, the power to attract.

The Other N Word

I have officially decided to put all my focus into my book through the end of the fiscal year. That is hard to type because I have LOVE for all my current projects and wanted to dabble in all three, but the Gods have spoken. I have begun the process of testing my audience. Really this means sending it to my friends. Now, I have only completed a rough book proposal, not my whole manuscript. I sent Chapter 1 to a few people and it instantly made me feel that they needed to read the rest for that chapter to have any context. Although the reception was good, it is imperative that I complete this for my title to make sense. I have a completed Chapter Annotations section and that provides a much clearer picture, but I think I only sent that to one person besides reading it myself. It is pretty great though...pretty, pretty great. (in my Larry David voice).

Anyway, I had decided to put the proposal aside and let it simmer before whipping it into shape and deciding my next move. With one week to spare, I moved right into production of my radio show, A-MusE-N and my calendar was filling up with dates in anticipation of my pitching stage. All the while, everything in around me was pointing to my need to focus on completing the book.

First, I got a call from a venture capitalist who expressed interest in helping me self-publish my book and use his social media, SEO expertise to create my own audience.

Then, I get a tweet from my friend Tanekeya Word attaching a NYT article entitled "The Post-Black Condition." It turns out to be a book review by Professor Orlando Patterson of Toure's new book "Who's Afraid of Post Blackness?". Anyway, this ignited something in me and connected to something I have been holding on to for almost 2 years now. Not just my book, but what my voice adds to the general conversation. In January of 2010, I received a vision and it was so clear and awesome and I really wanted to do everything in my power to make it real. I hesistated, but I finally sent the people who believed in me "The Muse Story" which came to me during that time. Their response began a series of events that were so unbelievably tied to my purpose that I was truly overwhelmed. Truly! I had to take a break and get into my head so that I could get out of it. They say success is when preparedness meets opportunity, well let's just say I am prepared Now.

In that story I talk about how meeting Valerie Boyd and hearing about her journey to tell Zora Neale Hurston's story sparked something for me. Fate would have it that I was having brunch with Boyd a month later outside of Eatonville and I suggested that she coin a term to describe this new renaissance we felt occuring in the arts community. She suggested I do it. We both kind of laughed it off, but of course, that was part of my vision. Well, Patterson asked a question in his review about what my generation thought about our role in society in light of the benefits we have been afforded. I felt the need to answer that question and I am working to get it published in the Washington Post. The Other N Word is my contribution to the conversation and it is obviously taking place now.

Yesterday was just a surreal day, more so upon reflection than it was in real time. I was on my first television commercial shoot and in front of the camera to boot. I come home and find out that Steve Jobs has passed away and this morning I find out that my beloved Professor Bell also passed away along with Reverend Shuttersworth. Three brave visionaries...such a powerful message! 10/5/11--I will never forget this day! Reading Professor Bell's obituary in the NY Times solidified for me that my book was to be my focus. It was He who introduced me to Critical Race Theory and just being critical and not substituting your own sense of logic for those of others. My decision to use my personal narrative to tell the story of my theory is directly influenced by his defiance of the contraining rules of legal and scholarly writing. I hope to push even further so that I can talk to, instead of talking about, the people I represent. In Professor Bell's honor, and because the message couldn't be any clearer, I am devoting from now through the Winter's cold to completing the 1st full draft of The Other N Word. I am also manifesting a warm vacation spot a couple of those months where I can write in peace.