Quantum mechanic theory, metaphysics and nearly all spiritual systems teach us that the material world is created from our thoughts…feelings, vibrations. If that’s true, then the Brooklyn I see must be the result of some impoverished imaginations.
When I walk outside in any neighborhood in Black Brooklyn and the sidewalks are covered in garbage–pieces flying all across the walkway, to the point where I need sunglasses to protect my eyes from debris–I become thoroughly uneasy. Wondering, How is this ok? How does this alone not generate enough rage to redress it?
Relative Consciousness Equals Rage
Of course James Baldwin’s quote about rage is a constant backdrop to my thoughts when I walk the streets of BK. The Asian business owners of many languages and their endemic disrespect of the Black residents who have no choice but to patronize their businesses–they light a violent fire within me. I want more company in my rage. But I also recognize that my people have been enraged for so long, we have little fire left. What fire remains is just enough to keep us alive. Many of us.
My rage has waned and refueled and waned and refueled. Leaving Brooklyn years ago was my opportunity to relinquish my rage–trading it in for Ivy League hoodies. Returning to this place I call home comes with its accompanying enveloping anger. How can a place so full of genius be so preposterously inhumane? Cue thoughts of Lagos.
With injustice so filthy, so dramatic, so desperately terrible, the only way out is to imagine a new reality. It is not possible to pick up every piece of garbage on Brooklyn’s streets fast enough that they are not replaced with new garbage. But it is possible to imagine a new Brooklyn swiftly enough that the behaviors of Brooklynites and those who sign the checks at City Hall begin to reflect the desire we have for a borough that loves us back, no matter how much money we make or what neighborhood we live in.
Cue the Artists
This is where artists come in. Quantum mechanic theory calls for an imagining that can be internalized–rewiring our internal systems to embrace a possible reality that is desirable to us–through images and stories. A reality more desirable albeit than our current reality. It is only artists that are capable of creating the imaginaries that allow for these possibilities, at grand scale.
Artists can show us what it could look like to have a Brooklyn of clean streets in Flatbush, in Brownsville, in East New York. Artists can show us what it would look like to replace the liquor stores with tutoring centers and the disrespectful, entitled non-Black fruit stand-owners with respectful, warm and embracing organic food coop owners sprinkled all over Black Brooklyn. Artists can show us what it would look like to eradicate homelessness in solar-powered stone-tiled bright-windowed government-subsidized housing.
Our beloved Brooklyn is in desperate need of a collective radical reimagining. A reimagining that can guide new directions, those that center humans and profit all, wholistically. By applying creativity, visual imaginaries that celebrate the best of what Brooklyn has to offer will train our minds, our souls and our bodies to expect a better Brooklyn, and to thus act in accordance with that expectation.
I’ve featured here the work of Olalekan Jeyifous, the one artist I could find who is radically reimagining BK in tangible and glorious ways as a visual storyteller. We need more Jeyifous’ and a coalition of folks working to manifest these visions in reality.
If City Hall could apply Quantum mechanic theory in their legislation and direction of this magical borough, in service of the most vulnerable among us, Brooklyn would become a perfect model for thriving, rich, productive and prosperous cities everywhere.
Thank you, I live in the beautiful section of Flatbush. I would not trade the food, culture and beautify for anything.