I got off the 401 at Markham Road today. And I’m so used to this exit now. On mornings which I call the fall but really are still late summer, I hesitantly pass McCowan but know better than to sit in that far right eastbound lane. I have taken this exit for years. I will get to that fork approaching the off ramp and then make my decision. I’ve driven this exit to my reality for so many days. I can decide within a matter of 20 yards, four seconds, which lane to choose. It’s like we don’t even think about the smallest things.

Progress Road still has the McDonalds where we use to wait for McChickens and McFlurries at 2am in cars. Four niggas deep, gleeful that Cube drove a standard and laughing at how his whip rocked backwards every time we had to move up in the drive-thru line. Every time someone else got their order we rocked back before we could move up. Going in reverse on that drive-thru ramp at that McDonald’s in the backseat of that sedan was enough for us all to smile and laugh. We used to be filled by the smallest things. Rest in peace to Cube also.

What does a space really mean?

I slapped my car off of a curb one night because I was hungry. I wanted a mojo burger from this local spot––right now I can’t remember the name. I do remember it was winter and there was light snow on the road and I was stupid and I was fishtailing on purpose.

The next day, I had to tilt my steering wheel all the way to the left just to drive straight. I asked a friend to drive behind me and tell me if anything seemed off. She said, “your car is fucked. It’s like you’re driving straight but the entire body of your car is off its hinges.” I wanted to laugh and make fun of her for thinking that a car had hinges. Why would she say hinges? But my dad saw my car later that night and laughed at me too. I went to get it fixed. My dad said that a ten thousand dollar burger was the most expensive piece of food he ever heard of. I thought that was a clever joke. We used to treat the biggest things like they were the smallest things. I still can’t remember the name of that burger spot. 

None of that matters now. I try to walk more often than drive. And I bought a bicycle a few weeks before my father passed away. I spent a lot of money on it. Seven hundred bucks plus tax is a lot of money for a bicycle. To me. I used to steal bicycles when I was like fourteen, fifteen. Right off of driveways or anywhere else where I deep down thought that people deserved to get their bikes stolen. It was a rush. A really stupid really small one. Always was.

I wanted to write about Markham Road and how so many things have changed after decades of seeing Markham Road for what it actually was. Is. It is now like a bone buried. In my mind’s eye I see the sign of the burger joint that I can’t remember the name of. It  was a spot at the end of this tiny row of stores at Markham and Brimorton. Notice how people from Scarborough always put the north south streets before the east west ones when describing a location? Always. Is that true of everyone, everywhere? Some things are still the same. I know someone will tell me the name of that food spot. Because so much has fallen but so much is still standing. And it’s the smallest things that still matter now. 

The post The Smallest Things appeared first on Matthew R. Morris.

That other bell, the one that marked the end of transition where kids needed to be seated in classrooms for afternoon attendance was like forty-two, forty-three seconds away. I could tell. I worked at the same school, in the same building for six years. After six years there are things like the timing of bells that have an innate way of growing into a teacher’s timing and expectations. Into a teacher’s values. Bells have become my self-preservation. Only in between those bells, we allow a slice of ourselves to exist. 

Laila understood this about me as she walked towards my classroom after that first bell rang. I heard you! My, my, my. That, that, that. She was near the door with thirty-one seconds left before that second bell rang. That, that, that. Theirs, theirs, theirs. She also has learned this about school too. We, me, them, that, theirs…we all tell them their smart if and when they show us that they know that. Laila knows that. 

She said, “I’m not involved in that, Mr. Morris…That’s not me this time.”

This time. What does this time mean at the end of confessional sentences coming out of a 14-year-old girl’s mouth when speaking about friends, students, coming back from lunch and singing songs with less than 41 seconds until they’re supposed to be seated at their desks? Laila arrived at the doorway nine paces before her singing friends. She knew how to do that. I know that she knows that I know she’s learned a thing or two about school. 

“Did you go out to lunch with them, Laila?” I didn’t even really look at her when I asked her. I looked at her when she started to respond. “Yeah, of course. You know that, Mr. Morris. We go out to lunch together. Everyday.” She didn’t look at me when she answered. We both were watching her friends happily singing away while unlocking their locks to their lockers. That second bell rang. They were still singing. We were still staring. “Laila, get into the classroom. The second bell rang. I’m ‘bout to take attendance.”

“Okay. Mr. Morris.”

There’s an immeasurable thing that occurs in between remembering and writing memories down. A similar gap occurs when teaching and remembering how to teach. An equivalent gap happens to kids who understand the difference between acting like kids and performing like students in front of teachers. Some students grapple with it and get it on the spot. Some kids never get it and only realize it after when they are on porches with friends, half drunk, talking about that time Mr. SoAndSo said this or did that. Some just say, “I know, Mr. Morris” to the teacher in a way that makes their teacher know that they know. Those kids are smart. I like to think that some of those other kids know both ends of that dichotomy and come back from lunch singing songs because they know. Because they know, too. So they don’t give or break or bend. In a good way. Because they know. Those kids are smart, too.

For right now I think Laila is smarter than Shari, Felicia, and Nasir. But I don’t know. I know that they’ve learned and thought about ways to break or bend. But, I do know them. The same way Laila thinks she knows me enough to dissociate herself with her friends and pronounce to her teacher that she isn’t them. I think I know her well. Shari, Felecia, and Nasir too. But I help her more, between those bells, because I know her more and I think she knows me better than those other kids actually know me. Because I know that teaching comes down to bending, breaking and re-molding. I mean, they came back singing after lunch. Knowing. Not broken. Never bending. But I wanted to tell Laila that there ain’t nothing wrong with singing after a lunch and coming back into a building still singing. Unmoulded in a way. Adults never do that. I really sometimes deep down want to do that. But I never do. I don’t know if she know that. I wonder if those three other kids, who came back singing, know that better. Never knowing that they’ll never know what it means to break.

I never actually know so I never actually do because I’ve learned how to live in between those bells. That’s what I’ve been taught. That’s how I learned how to teach. The bells alone ring so loud that I automatically know what they are supposed to mean. Sometimes I forget what it means to live outside of them when I am immersed inside of them every day, all day, until they stop ringing. To still be still, and moving flexibly at the same time. Laila told me, without telling me, she heard them. Those other kids told me the same thing. But they didn’t say it to my face. They told me another way. They sang. They sang through those bells. And kept singing after those seconds after the bell rang silent. And then they stopped singing. They knew it was time for afternoon attendance. They came into class. They knew I heard them so I could never mark them not there. They’re there. All of them. I call names and say, “when you hear your name, say here.” They all do. I have to decide on what I should listen to more. 

The post In Between The Bell appeared first on Matthew R. Morris.

Being grown and oldish and tested and double or triple educated and “woke” and experience-ridden and from there and now here hasn’t left me stronger, more wiser. It’s left me broken. I’ve developed the ability to block things out like repugnant viral videos of kids lighting themselves on fire for the sake of a challenge or cops killing men that they view as dogs, to the point where them things don’t really affect me on a day to day. But after the shooting in Uvalde, I realize that those things slowly metastasize, regardless of whether I see them or not, in my brain, in my heart, in my soul. And damn, parts of me just slowly crumble away every single time I even hear about one of them.

Jay’s text read, “18 dead in a school shooting in Texas! Wow.” I wrote back, “The fuck?!” I didn’t do what we do when we get a message like that. To be honest, when I read the message, I was driving anyway. “For real?!?” I wrote back, typing in the two question marks and the exclamation in between while waiting at a red light. It’s so sick. I’m so immediate. I’m so sick. I’m so immediate. What the fuck?

We were all somewhere way before and now we’re here. Before, for me, I was in high school when Columbine happened. My interior nature made me look around, and even then I noticed that it, the school, was a place of shock, then subtle intersection, then consolidation. Then when I got my first job as a teacher half a decade later they taught us to teach math in three-part lessons. Minds on first, right? Action second, right? Third, you know. 

Where I was way before here we all reacted to tragedy––deep and dark and uncompromising tragedy––differently. I stuck to my television when it happened. We talked, to hear, to heal, to help, for days. When I was there a lot of the children and a lot of the adults were damaged but most were not broken broken. We’re all broken now.

I’m very broken because I’ve told you things about me. And the things I’ve told you about me should let you know that I know that you know I can’t do things on my own. But me and you just carry on. Don’t we? Haven’t we? We learned but did we?

Apathy and numbness, I’ve realized, are two separate things. I am apathetic to a text message alert because I’ve become numb to those alerts over fifteen sixteen twenty two years. A morning conversation in a classroom after a beyond-repugnant display of evil is beyond-helpful. But left at that is why my skin is so thick and my heart so calloused. Left at that is why some of them still feel left alone. Alone at that is not education, not learning, not love, and for sure not therapy. Left alone is why we will talk about it the next morning but not be vigilant in fighting ourselves for true help. I still have so many questions.

The post Uvalde Is In Our Bones appeared first on Matthew R. Morris.

“Will Smith just went off on the Oscars.” She wrote. “He just went up and slapped Chris Rock. Check Twitter.” I did. The video looked as absurd as the text I just received. Ain’t no way I thought, and wrote back. Ain’t no way. My brain immediately went to ratings, roll-outs, and quasi-realism. Instead of going to bed I went back on Twitter, looking for more information to support my immediate opinion. Ten minutes later I set my alarm and turned my phone face side down on the nightstand. Thirteen minutes later I picked up my phone and typed “Will Smith Oscars” into Reddit. Twenty-two minutes later I closed Instagram and double-checked my alarm before putting my phone back down. Will Smith…Chris Rock…Oscars…Nah, Ain’t No Way.  

When I got to school in the morning, I quietly asked two students if they’d seen “the Will Smith thing”. One said yes, the other said no, both in a way that revealed that either way, neither of them really cared about it. Later in the morning, my boys and I group texted back and forth about how Duke and UNC had never met up in a Final Four before. Then, Petey wrote, “Yo, that shit wasn’t fake, b. Niggas get slapped everyday. This just happened to be on TV.” Vince agreed, “There’s no way they gon’ have a black man assault another black man on live TV for ratings.” That’s true, I thought. Ain’t no way they would do that. 

Before lunch I ran into a teacher carrying a box in an empty hallway on the second floor. “So what do you think…Will?” She asked. The pause I took must have told her that I had lots of thoughts so she helped by narrowing her probe. “Do you think Will would have done that if it were a white man?” 

Ain’t no way I thought. “But it wasn’t,” I said. “You know he wouldn’t have dared if that was a white man up there making that joke. What if it was a female?” She said. I forced a smile, not because I disagreed with her opinion, but more because I had not even processed that far yet. “I hear you,” I said, “I’m just still stuck on whether or not it was all real. I know what they’re saying now, but damn, I don’t know.”

I took afternoon attendance and told my class, “I want to show you something. I want you to just watch it without saying anything and then I want you to talk about your thoughts. Imma let you know off the jump: there’s swearing in this, so please chill and be mature and take this in, okay.” Before playing the two minute clip I gave context, only about the Oscars, because, you know, kids these days…

They spent the period sharing thoughts that touched on free speech and consequence, (toxic) masculinity and protecting family, social media and credibility, anti-blackness and cancel culture, and vaccines (yeah, it connected, too) among so many other things. My students shared and shared one at a time. After their dialogue slowly simmered away they turned to me, who did nothing more than lightly moderate the discussion and listen. “What are your thoughts, Mr. Morris?”

I thought about what to say. About what my opinion would mean to them. About how my views are relative to my life and how that impacts the words I choose to say, or not say, when asked a question by a student in a classroom. About how sometimes our values, our morals can be ethically correct to ourselves, but in conflict with others. And how educators should keep this idea of pluralism in mind when teaching and talking and thinking about things inside our school walls. 

I turned off the projector, picked up my classroom keys, and waved their next teacher into the room. On my way out, I said, “ain’t no way.”

The post Will Smith, Ain’t No Way appeared first on Matthew R. Morris.

When I pulled up to the parking lot, a homeless man was laying in the shade against the building. I locked my Benz twice while walking towards him and the entrance. His long brownish-black and grey dreads hung over his beat down windbreaker. The faded green cargo pants he wore seemed like they used to carry a man twenty pounds fuller. I gazed at the blue crocs covering his Black feet. Blue crocs on dry Black feet while lying peacefully on the shaded concrete beside a bougie coffee shop? I had so many questions I almost forgot what errand I was now on.  

When I got closer he looked up at me. “Chicken sandwich,” he said abruptly. His request sputtered out drenched with flem. “Huh?” I inadvertently offered. “Chicken sandwich,” he repeated, this time more clear. His look reminded me of a person I loved. His dark, tethered facial features and missing teeth prompted mental images of my dad, laying on the couch in the living room late at night, letting movies watch him. For a second I thought about pausing, asking him questions that started with how and when. Instead I said, “I got you.”

Inside the Starbucks I waited in the socially distanced line. I studied the cold sandwiches displayed on the shelves in front of the cash register. They all looked bready as fuck. I picked one up that had the word chicken sandwiched in between four other fancy-ass sounding words. I remembered to look for the bottle of iced coffee, blonde roast, that I left home to buy. Of course they didn’t sell it at a fucking Starbucks. What was I thinking? I figured the least I could do was order a grande or picante or medium blonde roast iced coffee when I got to the cashier or bartender or barista.

The sandwich in my hand looked better than decent but I remembered that I was buying it for a stranger and also that a Tim Hortons was a sixty foot walk back across the parking lot. Spending nine bucks for a sandwich for a man that I would never see again seemed fiscally irresponsible. But walking back outside and across the parking lot empty handed while telling a man that I was going to get him a chicken sandwich from Tim Hortons’ instead because it was cheaper seemed straight up rude. I stayed in line and silently worked on how I would ask for my medium Starbucks blonde roast iced coffee.

I left Starbucks with the homeless man’s sandwich and a version of the iced coffee that I liked to drink, wondering if I closed my sunroof, also wondering if he’d still be there. I wondered about the patterns of homeless Black men. Do they move around? How do they pick who they ask for things like chicken sandwiches? How do they know where to settle for a few hours and relax? Why do I feel so sorry for them and think that any of us could have ended up that way? 

He sat up when he noticed me. “I got them to warm it up for you,” I said while handing him his nine dollar sandwich. He said thank you with his eyes and a nod. I kept walking back to my Benz. “Make sure you drink some water too,” I said, repeating the same things I told my dad every time I closed the door behind me after visiting him.

The drive back to my condo took four minutes. After two stop lights I wondered if the ground beef that was sitting on my passenger seat was getting too warm and too spoiled to use to cook a baked ziti in my slow cooker. Inside my condo my stomach told me that I was also hungry. Upset now. Upset that I didn’t buy two of those bready-ass but decent enough looking chicken sandwiches from Starbucks instead of now heating up some pizza pockets in my microwave. Trying to reason why I should feel grateful for being able to leave home for food and drink and come back home in the first place.  

[share title=”Share this Post” facebook=”true” twitter=”true” google_plus=”true”]     

The post Starbucks and the Homeless appeared first on Matthew R. Morris.

I was pleased to see that the section had almost tripled in size. A small win for us. But in this section I noticed something else that startled my attention. I saw something that I had never encountered in this section of the book store. It was something so foreign to my experience that I stopped everything that I was doing; I put my phone back in my pocket and put the book I was intent on previewing back on the shelf. I think I ended up picking up another random book just because, after a few moments, I realized that my current behaviour was stemming from my subconscious thoughts bursting right into my consciousness. I was staring at this picture that I never once pictured in my own head. I was staring at an older white man attentively examining a book that I figured no older white man would ever care to examine. 

This older white man looked like the type of fellow that I would stay away from. Not for the sake of my own protection but to buffer his. He was wearing plain blue jeans – the type of thick and plain blue jeans that older white men wear after their older white wives iron them in the morning. And a plaid shirt, tucked in. He had grey hair and was wearing glasses. He looked like the type of older white man that, once you look at him, you think you know everything about. He owned a cottage and a mid-size sedan that wasn’t too flashy but bought brand new. He probably watched a bit of football but enjoyed golf more. He knew how to keep a lawn looking green, diversify a financial portfolio, and was retired – definitely retired. It was my instant stereotyping of him that made the book he was thinking about buying even more abnormal. The book was Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s How to be an Anti-Racist.

I was stunned by what was happening six feet away from me. An older white man who by all stereotypical accounts looked like your textbook conservative checking out a “Black book”. We weren’t at the front of the store where some of those “Black books” have now been placed due to the combination of our social climate and good ol’ fashion capitalism. You had to be intentional to be in the section we were in – it was all the way in the back corner of this bookstore. And here this man was, reading the front flap and then the back. Flipping through the table of contents. Skimming the start of a chapter in the middle. He was studying this book. I was studying him. 

I guess what caught my attention was noticing the actual book that he decided to pick up. I figured that older white people that looked like him didn’t really care about being “anti-racist”. And I can’t say what his intentions were. So I tried to think about them. Maybe he was thinking about buying it as a gift for his son or daughter or grandchild. Maybe he was thinking about buying it as a gift for one of them for a plethora of reasons. And then I thought about how those reasons could possibly be contingent on other reasons. So I stopped thinking about his why and started to think back on the entire moment and realized something. 

I don’t really think it matters what his intentions were. At that moment, I wanted to walk up to him and ask what he thought about the book and why he decided to pick it up. But I didn’t because I thought that maybe I would be intimidating. Him looking at the book was enough for me as selfish as that may sound. And I did not want him to walk away from his curiosity for the sake of my own. 

So I left him in his comfort. I let him engage in Blackness, for whatever purpose it served him, on his own terms. Comfortable on his continuum by being alone with his own thoughts. As a Black man who not only experiences my own Blackness but is somewhat trained on thinking about the subject, maybe that is where all people, not just white, should start – in a comfortable space and by ourselves. 

[share title=”Share this Post” facebook=”true” twitter=”true” google_plus=”true”] 

The post How to be an Anti-Racist in a Bookstore appeared first on Matthew R. Morris.