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More! Down! Help!

4/20/2016

I was on a subway train in New York last week when I saw a baby sign ‘more’ to his dad. The father happily responded and gave his child another handful of food. It took me right back to when our children were pre-verbal babies and communicated with us through sign (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_sign_language).

We taught our babies lots of words, but I found that they really only needed five signs to convey their needs: up, down, more, finished, and help.

These signs essentially communicated:

Up: I want to be closer to you.
Down: I want to be more independent from you.
More: Keep doing what you’re doing.
Finished: Stop doing what you’re doing.
Help: I need you to help me.

Whether I’m the person doing the asking or the person being asked, it strikes me that in some core way those signs contain the essence of what I need to create stronger and more harmonious relationships. I wonder if every communication can be broken down to a request to: be closer, have more space, do more, do less, or help. The signals I send and receive may not be as simple as that baby asking for more apples, but I have a feeling they could be boiled down to those five concepts. I’m going to try these ideas on with my young adult daughters. It might just be that the five signs that helped me communicate better with them as babies will give me a good framework for being in relationship with them now.

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The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off

4/6/2016

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I’m starting to research a sequel to Yellow Crocus. It’s quite sweet to see what Mattie, Lisbeth, and their families are up to. It's going to be set after the Civil War, so I’m reading and watching a lot about that time period.

I come away from each research session infuriated. I rant and rave to everyone within ear-shot. I’ve learned that written into the 13th amendment is the road map to continued forced unpaid labor. It says: neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Once you are convicted of a crime, you can be put into involuntary service. Legally. Vagrancy laws were passed after the civil war. If you couldn’t prove you had a job you could be leased out for labor. Ninety percent of leased convicts were of African descent and ninety percent were men.

Slavery by Another name is a book that documents the practice. I thought the title must be hyperbole. But there is a good argument to be made that the forced labor that replaced legalized slavery was actually worse.

In 1855 the cost to ‘purchase’ an unskilled young man was around $1,200. That was a huge financial investment that gave the enslavers incentive to preserve the well-being of the enslaved. In contrast, leasing a convict cost as little as $8 per month. There was no longer a financial reason to adequately feed, shelter, or protect the forced labor. They could be, and often were, literally worked to death, and their friends and family had no recourse.

This went on for decades. And in some perverse ways it continues in our current system of mass incarceration.

I want the magic wand that will make all this be over. I want the United States to actually be the just and fair country that I was taught it was in 5th grade U.S. history. But it’s not. We have so far to go before we reach the place Dr. King called the Beloved Community. I still hold onto hope humans can get there someday. Sadly I no longer believe it will be in my lifetime. But I’m still going to work for the Star Trek future for my descendants.

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Laila Ibrahim is a passionate author set out to write stories of love's ability to transcend human-made systems of oppression.

Living Right goes beyond the headlines to reveal the life and death stakes when a devoted mother struggles to reconcile her evangelical Christian beliefs with her son’s sexual orientation.

Set in the antebellum South, Yellow Crocus is a rich, evocative tale of love, loss and redemption between an enslaved black woman, her privileged white charge, and their fight for freedom.

Acclaims for Yellow Crocus

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