The waitlist for Playing Card Divination: An Ancestral Introduction, my four-week intensive for Black people who want to deepen their ancestral practice through close study of playing card reading is now OPEN. Enrollment starts soon; class runs from September 6th at 6pm ET to September 27 at 9pm ET. THE WAITLIST CLOSES TONIGHT!
When I was a kid and my brain was still soft and pliable, my grandmother said that white men in a group were more dangerous than a pack of wolves. She said that if you saw them near water, especially, you should leave the pool—they would hold you under until you drowned.
She was born in 1942: not quite a boomer, her birth preceded the height of the Civil Rights Movement. She said she wanted to go to the children’s march, but her mother said it was simply too dangerous.
I grew up as a competitive public speaker. Extemporaneous speech was my specialty, though I sometimes recited poetry and prose through a program that taught Black children the art of oration at low cost. It was the only hobby I could afford to have, and my church subsidized my participation.
I was exceptionally good at it. Though my academic achievement often lagged behind my on-stage gravitas, in the eighth grade I found an opportunity to show off my skills. A little context: I am from New Jersey; 9/11 happened when I was in the seventh grade. The next year a wave of patriotic pandering was underway in the aftermath of the war in Afghanistan.
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Everyone in my school was required to write an essay called “I Pledge to America,” which our teachers entered into a contest at the VFW. It was judged blind. I won for my classroom, then for my grade, then for my school, then for the county.
At the county level, there was a monetary prize and a showcase where we’d read our essay at a podium before an audience. My godmother bought me a tan suit. My cousin braided my hair for free with pink extensions. I practiced my essay in the mirror each night before school, and again before bed. I knew I’d continue to win.
In the car, on the day of the showcase, my grandmother turned to me with pity in her eyes. Quickly, she returned them to the road and said “they don’t know you’re Black, but once they do, you won’t win anymore.” I told her she didn’t know what she was talking about, that she wanted me to fail. I told her, in true Leo midheaven style, my essay was the best and the world had changed. It was 2002, after all. Maybe she wasn’t built for the new millennium.
After my speech, the parents of the boys who lost to me came up to congratulate me. This was uncommon—they were Indian and Taiwanese respectively. We knew the disdain our Asian neighbors had for Black people, and were accustomed to being disrespected in their stores and restaurants. I knew I had to have crushed it for them to admit that my work was the best. I had no doubt in my mind I’d keep winning.
The bald, hairy white men on the jury looked at me wide eyed as all 5’8 of me accepted my accolades. It would be my final win in the competition.
That was when I learned about the joker. The joker greets us when we realize we are not living in a fair, organized universe. The joker meets us and we meet the joker when we question the providence of god and ourselves.
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One joker shakes our shit up to put us on another path, the other shakes us up and we find ourselves on another path we could have never imagined.
That sounds the same, right? It’s not.
If you live under capitalism, as I do, the joker is everywhere. Red joker, black joker, everywhere the adversary.
As I wrote in today’s email to the waitlist for Playing Card Divination: An Ancestral Introduction (you have until tonight to join the waitlist, and get some questions answered on Sunday) if i had to pin a phrase on the jokers in a deck of cards it would be “ain’t that some shit!” Some fuck shit. Some slick shit. Some corny shit. Some wild shit. The jokers are full of shit.
And it be shit you can’t always understand. Not like “the lord works in mysterious ways,” more like “I got evicted because my landlord wasn’t in town to collect my rent check, which I sent every month on time.” Like, “and then he won in court on a technicality.”
Like, “my grandmother died, and now I’m inheriting her house,” and “oh shit, the taxes on the house are worth more than the house.” (This didn’t happen to me, btw—I did not and am not set to inherit jack shit but the gift I’m sharing with yous on this account :))
You may think I’m gearing up to tell you how to beat the joker, how to defeat the joker—shit, you can barely predict the joker, (but you can learn to leave room for it in your prediction.)
Best I can tell you is like Toni Morrison told you in Song of Solomon:
“As fleet and bright as a lodestar, he wheeled towards Guitar and it did not matter which one of them would give up his ghost in the killing arms of his brother. For now he knew what Shalimar knew: If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.”
The waitlist for Playing Card Divination: An Ancestral Introduction, my four-week intensive for Black people who want to deepen their ancestral practice through close study of playing card reading is now OPEN. Enrollment starts soon; class runs from September 6th at 6pm ET to September 27 at 9pm ET. THE WAITLIST CLOSES TONIGHT!
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