PSA: somebody need to teach our African family “the nod.”
On many occasions, while strolling through the streets of Kansas City, New York, Boston, Miami, Austin, DC and Oakland–to name a couple few–I’ve found my groove knocked off balance, shocked and arrested; when a fellow brother or sister–often from the beautiful continent of Africa–failed to return the nod.
Picture me vibing; then frozen by a curiosity that only occurs in the most frigid parts of a white jesus hell–yes that place where Madonna invented voguing–complete with mayo sandwiches, boxed macaroni and cheese and seasonless chick, hell let’s add Seinfeld on loop as the background music.
Now you too, have viewed the sunken place and hopefully, you’ve had a moment to take this in and return.
The issue here is not the proximity to white jesus hell; but the next worst thing, Black invisibility to Black folks. There is nothing more dangerous and nothing more cutting.
Now I get that African American culture is full of nonsensical shit, like chitlins and a white savior, but this is a serious intervention I’m trying to offer up here and it’ll neither cost you tithes or blood pressure; hell, it may even save your ass.
If you Black, and see somebody Black, you nod nigga.
It’s your duty. Non-nodding releases me of all duty to have your black ass back when you getting fucked, or on that fuck shit.
You especially nod when you around your lil white friends because they need to know you got back up and you know where your allegiances lay. Also, you do not nod to white folks; ever. You may say “hey Becky” or “hello Jon” but you do not nod. Na. Other people of color generally do not get the nod either; Latinx folks of non-clear Black descent can come into nodability but community will sanction this after a character and fitness review and you will know if and when to nod, if one has been deemed fam adjacent. We do nod to Indigenous folks, because this they home first, white “indigenous” folks, Issa Na, not a nod.
Now, the nod is a recognition of what the first niggas brought here, what was taken in our coming, what was given in our births and what the cost of remaining has been. The nod is a noting of the unbreaking of Black folks, the souls of Black folks, the divinity of Black folk that exists within us all. You are nodding to the God in me, my body being a temple to those ancestors and spiritual guides, and my body being one to you; i know you, without knowing you. This is why you nod. You nod to the 12 million souls, that journeyed and dived, that swam and died, that escaped and refashioned, that watered the land in blood. This is why you nod.
You always nod to us.
We to you.
Never to whites.
Now you know.
We honor the Stolen Gods here.
