Moten, Michael Brown

Against the grain of the state’s mono­po­li­za­tion of cere­mo­ny, cere­mo­nies are small and pro­fli­gate ; if they weren’t eve­ryw­here and all the time we’d be dead. The ruins, which are small rituals, aren’t absent but sur­rep­ti­tious, a range of song­ful scar­ring, when people give a sign, shake a hand. But what if toge­ther we can fall, because we’re fal­len, because we need to fall again, to conti­nue in our com­mon fal­len­ness, remem­be­ring that fal­ling is in appo­si­tion to rising, their com­bi­na­tion given in lin­ge­ring, as the giving of pause, recess, ves­ti­bu­lar remain, cus­to­dial remand, hold, hol­ding in the inter­est of rub, dap’s reflex and reflec­tion of mater­nal touch, a mater­nal eco­lo­gy of laid hands, of being hand­led, han­ded, han­ded down, nurture’s natu­ral dis­per­sion, its end­less refu­sal of stan­ding. Hemphill empha­ti­cal­ly announces the socia­li­ty that Luther shel­ters. Fallen, risen, mo(u)rnful sur­vi­val. When black men die, it’s usual­ly because we love each other, whe­ther we run, or fight, or sur­ren­der. Consider Michael Brown’s gene­ra­tive occur­rence and recur­rence as refu­sal of the case, as refu­sal of stan­ding. You can do this but only if you wish to insert your­self, and now I must abuse a phrase of Ah Kee’s, into black world­less­ness. Our home­less­ness. Our sel­fless­ness. None of which are or can be ours.