When it’s played the way it’s supposed to be played, basketball happens in the air, flying, floating, elevated above the floor, levitating, the way oppressed peoples of this earth imagine themselves in their dreams.
—Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, On the Shoulders of Giants
The 2014 Community Awareness Tournament was the marquee tournament of the summer and the final city game that Jason, C.J., and I played in together. It was special, not only because it was our last game but also due to its being infused with a sense of joy rather than sorrow. Although street basketball is often played within a context of ongoing violence, its practice sometimes moves beyond and challenges the permanence of that violent history. This chapter explores the ecstatic dimensions of street basketball, highlighting the dunk as a prototypical symbol. The dunk, in which black youth take flight above the asphalt, signifies what sociologist Michael Eric Dyson refers to as an “edifying deception”—“the ability to flout widely understood boundaries through mesmerization, a subversion of common perceptions of the culturally or physically possible through the creative and deceptive manipulation of appearance.”1
C.J., Jason, and I were proud to be playing in Russell Paulding’s Community Awareness Tournament with the names of Marvin Barros Jr. and C.J.’s cousin, Eric Paulding, across our backs. Coincidentally, when Eric was murdered, it was Marvin who stopped Russell from seeking revenge. “Marvin saw me walking down the street with redness in my eyes,” Russell recalled. “He knew I was out for blood. He heard what happened to my cousin and went outside looking for me. That was the kind of person Marvin was. He cared!” Russell reflected on how Marvin forced him off the streets that day: “Let me talk to you for a second,” Marvin said as he pulled Russell aside. “You’re coming to my house.” When Russell entered Marvin’s apartment, he cornered him in the hallway, reached into Russell’s waistband, and pulled out a concealed gun. “I’ll be holding this. You’re spending the rest of the day right here,” Marvin commanded. “If Marvin hadn’t come looking for me,” Russell assured me, “somebody else would have died man, I’m telling you. I spent the whole day with Marvin.”
Now over a decade later, we were playing ball for Marvin and Eric and another young man who had died, named Lundy. Jason and I drove together that afternoon to the basketball court. C.J. agreed to meet us there. Sticks, another close friend, agreed to follow us with his white girlfriend in the car. The fact that Julie was white was not of much concern, because I knew she would be safe at the court. White recruiters and police officers always came to these games. However, I did wonder how she would feel surrounded by almost a thousand black men and women in the heart of the inner city.
We parked our cars on Columbia Road, one of Roxbury’s main streets. The sun baked the concrete as black and brown bodies moved up and down the sidewalk, sporting baggy jeans and colorful dresses. The court was at the end of a long alleyway, hidden from the main road, so we had to walk a good distance to reach the tournament. As we stepped out of the car, grabbed our bags and moved slowly toward the alleyway, I could feel the mixture of excitement and dread, especially coming from Sticks and Julie. Alleyways can feel like death traps in the city because there is no escape once you decide to enter. The walls of buildings on either side close in on you.
At the end of the alley was a group of young men, some sitting on a raised wall, others walking, congregating around them. Their presence marked the outer ring of the tournament. The tension in our bodies grew palpable as we approached them. As we inched closer the smell of marijuana wafted through the air. “Yo, what’s up my nigga?!” one of the young man said to me as he approached, placing his face within inches of mine. “Corey? Wow! Is that you? How have you been?” I responded with a sense of relief that it was Corey—one of Boston’s street-basketball legends. Everyone knew Corey had NBA talent, but drugs and bad choices ruined his chances. He spent his time smoking weed and hanging out on the outer circle. However, on this day I noticed something different about Corey. He seemed to be at peace.
Corey leaned into my body, almost embracing me. “Are you playing today, Naje?” “Yeah, I’m balling man. Are you?” I asked. “Yeah, I am doing it up for the kids man,” he replied. “I’ll get out there and run and shoot up a few threes, but man it’s not about that, it’s about being here and showing your face, providing inspiration for these younger guys, man. It’s about being out here and just talking and reconnecting with people you haven’t seen in a long time, and just doing whatever you can to show love in the community.” Corey’s words shocked me. I had known him when he was robbing stores and injecting steroids, and now to hear him articulate the meaning of street basketball as collective love broke open a tender place in my heart. “Wow, thank you Corey, for saying that man. That means a lot to me. I looked up to you growing up, and now to hear you say that, you came a long way man.” “Yeah man,” he agreed, “just getting older, man, and realizing that I have to be there for my son. I have a son now. Matter of fact, he is on the court now, wiping up everyone’s sweat, and funny thing is, he is happy to do it, wiping up nigga’s sweat. But that’s the thing. He is looking up to everyone here. He is soaking all of this in. I told him, go and talk to your Uncle Russ, he’ll give you a few dollars for wiping up the court.”2 I embraced Corey. “I love you man. Thank you for that message.” “No doubt,” Corey responded, as our group moved passed him towards the court. “But y’all better warm up well, ’cause I don’t want to have to cross y’all asses up!” Corey shouted from a distance. We turned and laughed. “Sticks, that was one of the best ballplayers ever to grace these Boston courts man.” “Wow, really?” Sticks said with excitement. Corey’s smile and body language had put us at ease. We had come with the weight of the world on our shoulders. Now our burden had begun to resolve into the strangest and most wonderful sense of anticipation as we walked toward the middle ring of the court.
The beat from the speakers blared in the distance. Ice cream and food trucks, cars, and banners with the names of the dead hung against the walls. People congregated, friends greeted those who had been apart for days, weeks, even years. In front of the banner with her son’s name across it was Marvin’s mother. “Onaje,” she said, staring at me as if she could see her son in my eyes. “Come here, let me hug you!” she said as she squeezed my body. “Mom,” I said, “how have you been? I have missed you. I’m so sorry I haven’t been around or called. I did see your daughters. I have been working and…” “Don’t worry about that, Onaje. You look so good. Ah, look at you. I’m so proud of you. How is your wife?” she asked. “She is good,” I responded. “My family is doing well. How is little Marvin?” When she looked at me strangely, I realized my mistake. I had meant to ask about Marvin’s son, Daeshawn. “Onaje, you always calling him ‘little Marvin.’ You crazy boy! Your godson is doing well. He should be here later today. You know he always has to be here for his father’s tournament.” “I hope to see Daeshawn, Mom, I really do,” I said, thankful that she had not been offended. “Well, you play well,” she said. “And when I see your godson I’ll send him over to you.” “Okay, thanks Mom. I love you.” “I love you too, boy.”
It felt good to reconnect with my best friend’s mom. I had always felt guilty for escaping Roxbury to an elite private school the same year he died. Why hadn’t I returned to Roxbury to find his mother and the son he left behind? Was I a coward for leaving the ghetto, abandoning the people who had raised me? Marvin’s mother’s embrace assuaged the guilt I didn’t know I had. I was still her child, her son’s best friend, and she still loved me, regardless of my limitations. Her expression of love—as brief as it was—helped me accept a part of myself I had killed long ago in order to survive in mainstream culture. This Community Awareness Tournament could help mend those wounds.
I looked up at Jason who mirrored my sense of joy as he walked toward the court with a beautiful smile on his face. He had come a long way since the day we met four years ago, when he was homeless and crying because his own mother seemed to choose drugs before him. “Onaje, you, by seeing you come from the same neighborhood I did and end up teaching and studying at BU, you confirmed my struggle. I knew I had a calling from God inside me, but seeing you let me know it was real,” he had explained to me.
Jason had also become more aware of his connections to ancestor spirits in the days leading up to the Community Awareness Tournament. “Onaje, I want to tell you something, I haven’t told no one. You remember Dora, the lady of God?” “Yeah, I remember Dora,” I nodded. “Well, the other day I was over her house and we were in her room sitting on the floor and she got real quiet. I looked over and then she got this look over her face, a strange look. Then the air in the room changed. It stood still. Everything got real strange and quiet. It’s hard to explain, but it was like the air stopped moving, and I looked over at Dora and it wasn’t her anymore if you know what I mean? It was her but it wasn’t. And a voice came out of Dora that wasn’t Dora’s voice. A woman spoke from Dora’s mouth. The voice said, ‘Jason, this is Jessie. I have been watching you. Can you hear me?’ ‘Yes,’ I told her I could hear her, and she was like, ‘you’re meant to do great things. You are meant to be a minister of God.’ I just sat there like, yo, what is going on right now? I just sat there and listened, and then Jessie stopped speaking and Dora came back and started acting normal again. I was like, ‘Dora, what just happened?’ And Dora told me that I needed to speak to Jessie and that she wouldn’t have showed me Jessie if I wasn’t ready to speak to her like that. I have never told no one this but you, Onaje, but I just feel like I needed to tell you. I couldn’t tell just anyone. They would think I’m crazy. Have you ever seen something like that?” I nodded my head in assurance. “When I visited Nigeria, there was one time, I won’t go into it now, but I know what you’re talking about,” I responded. “Yeah, I figured you had,” Jason said. “I knew you would understand.” “Listen, man,” I said. “I always knew you had a gift and I’m just thankful to know you and I can’t wait to see what you do with your gift, man. And I especially admire the way you have been caring for your mother now, even though she still struggles with drugs. I don’t know where you get the strength, man, but I admire you helping her fight those issues in her life.”
We had come a long way together as we reached the doorway to the inner sanctuary of the tournament. I could feel the intensity rise in the air. Close to a thousand people were in and around the court. “Yo, what’s up Onaje? You ballin’ today?” one brother asked at the gateway. “Yeah, I’m going to be out there today,” I responded with butterflies in my stomach. “Onaje was one of the best ballplayers in Boston,” he said as he turned to an older guy leaning against a metal railing next to the court. “You don’t have to tell me that. Look at him. His aura precedes him,” the old man responded with a smile.
To make it to the inner court, we had to push through standing rows of people, positioning themselves around sidelines, spilling onto the basketball floor. The scene of so many bodies rubbing together staring at the court was overwhelming. The smell of sweat hung in the air; an intense beat vibrating from speakers around the court passed through our bodies, shaking our innards. My flesh suddenly became engulfed in an ocean of smell and sound and vibration that made it feel impossible to think. As we walked toward the bench, my head kept nodding to the beat. I noticed one player dancing on the court. He took a few dribbles, let the ball bounce on its own, gyrated his torso, waist, then lower legs. When he was done, the ball fell back into his right hand as if it had been waiting for him to finish. It was magical. No one could escape the medicine of the music as it operated on us from the inside out. I felt a deep primal connection to everyone around me, all bouncing to the same rhythm. This was belonging. This was community. This was home. This swirl of smell and sound and vibration forced me to abandon myself in the moment.
Sticks, Jason, and I made our way to the warm-up bench. C.J. had just arrived. We put our bags down and stepped onto the court in full uniform. The crowd began to whisper: “Who are these guys? What team is this?” The Community Awareness Tournament was the biggest basketball stage in the city, and we were a surprise entry. It didn’t matter. Our bodies were on fire from the music, and we shot warm-up baskets like the best players in the world. Where was the energy coming from? I didn’t know. Was it the crowd? The beat? Corey’s embrace? Marvin’s mother? Carrying Marvin, Eric, and Lundy on our backs and in our hearts? The ball? The beat? The beat.
The next forty minutes were a blur. Sticks, a six-foot-six-inch-tall forward, stepped to half-court to perform the jump ball against a six-foot-ten giant. When the ball accidentally tipped in my direction, a wiry, strong, dark-skinned kid with long braided hair and I began wrestling for it. We were so close to each other that I could feel his thoughts. Something inside me responded. Once the ball cooperated with me, I raced down the court toward the basket, eyes on the rim. A defender stood before me at the free-throw line, crouched in a defensive stance. I stopped abruptly at the three-point line. The jump shot felt lovely leaving my hands. As the ball floated across the sky, I bent my wrist and extended my fingers toward the goal. Clang! The shot ricocheted hard off the back of the rim—too much adrenaline.
The opposing team’s center jumped above the rim, snatched the rebound out of the sky, and made a quick outlet for a lay-up. We were down by two. We missed our next three shots. Three minutes into the game the score was eight to zero. “Y’all gonna get blown out! Y’all better start playing some ball,” one old guy yelled from the sidelines. The pressure was mounting. The same wiry guard harassed me every time I got the ball. I started sweating profusely. Dribbling up the court, I altered my rhythm so he couldn’t time the movement of the ball. I glanced over at Jason. His made it clear with his eyes. He was not going to get blown out in front of this crowd. I whipped a cross-court pass toward his chest. He snatched it out of the air, faced his opponent and blew past him. He penetrated toward the left side of the basket, hung in the air, and scooped the ball off the glass. Swish! We finally had two points on the board. Next time down the court Jason took over as point guard, dribbling to the left again, this time draining a midrange jump shot. On the following play, he scored an acrobatic layup from the left baseline. We were back in the game. Now the old man responded encouragingly: “Okay, I guess y’all do got some game!”
By halftime we were in striking distance and had earned the crowd’s admiration. Although the other team’s point guard had been killing us with crossover moves, crisp passes, and his lightning speed, we managed to create some highlights of our own, including a tip-in layup that I snuck through the basket over their huge center. Right before we stepped back onto the court, C.J. pulled me aside: “Onaje, yo, everyone is talking about us in the crowd, especially you. Didn’t you see how silent everyone got when we first stepped onto the court? They’re like, yo, Onaje Woodbine’s out there! They want to see if you can bring your game here at the best tournament. They’re talking in the crowd.” I looked at C.J. and understood that he was challenging me. He had decided to coach from our bench for most of the game and wanted to see me put on a Yale performance.
After halftime, the same wiry guard stood in front of me, this time at the top of the key. He moved his chest close to mine as I dribbled the ball in my right hand. His chin touched my collarbone. I crouched low to the ground and fed the ball between my legs from right to left. I could feel him trying to read my body language. He inched closer, crowding my legs with his torso. I found a crevice in our warm embrace and gently fed the ball between my legs from left to right. In contrast to his hard exterior, the ball passed through us like a gentle breeze. He inched closer, but I suddenly felt fear and panic run through his body. He had overcommitted. He was now at the mercy of my handle as I weaved the ball through the small openings between us in a rhythmic fashion. He thrashed his arms and flailed his body because he knew that I was about to embarrass him. In desperation, he viciously hacked down on my forearms to force the referee to stop the game. When the referee called the foul, Jason ran over to me: “Yeah, yeah, that’s what I’m talking about!” I looked over at C.J. and smiled.
Unfortunately, when the other team received the ball, they were determined to beat us. All I remember next is that Sticks, Jason, and another teammate ended up hanging off of their center’s shoulders as he soared above the rim. The other team’s point guard made a spin move, then a crossover, jump-stopped into the lane, and darted a pinpoint chest pass into the hands of their big man. Their center launched off the floor above the paint, his two hands towering over his body with the ball, my three teammates holding onto his shoulders. Finally on his descent from the sky, he rammed the ball through the rim with such force that the entire backboard shook and swayed back and forth. Those of us below him ducked for cover. The crowd erupted into a frenzied state. Little boys were running around the court, grown men were screaming in the stands, women had their hands on their mouths. One onlooker standing under the basket starting yelling: “Who was it? Who got dunked on? Raise your hand if it was you?” He pointed to our players: “Yes, it was you, you, and you. Don’t deny it!”
Strangely, however, the dunk made me smile. I looked over at Sticks, and he was also trying to hold back a grin from his face. We had just witnessed a human helicopter take flight. Marvin and Eric would have been proud. When their center came down from the sky, he was surrounded by his teammates in celebration. With this dunk his team for all intents and purposes had already won the game. In street basketball, the team that provides the most edifying experience for the crowd is the real victor. Points matter less than style. And a dunk on three people is as edifying as it gets. When the clock ran out, we grabbed our bags and went to the first row of stands on the sidelines. There was no way we were leaving this sacred space.
“Let’s get this action started!” yelled a tall, dark-skinned man wearing skinny jeans with a microphone as he walked onto the court. It was the master of ceremonies. The MC’s appearance was comical and strangely out of place. He paced constantly between the audience and the court as the next game started, sometimes walking directly onto the floor as if he were the eleventh player. “I heard about you. They said you got skills!” he goaded a bulky five-foot-three point guard as he stood directly behind him on the court. “But you ain’t shown us nothing yet!” In response, the crafty point guard took the ball to the right corner of the basket against his defender, executed one dribble forward then a smooth step-back jump shot. The ball drilled its way through the bottom of the net. “He said not only do I shoot, but I can go to the hoop!” the MC replied, using his verbal trickery to raise the intensity of the competition. “He’s got his shirt tucked in like a general!” the MC joked, describing the speedy point guard’s uniform. The crowd laughed. In the loose and stylish world of street basketball it was rare to see a player wearing a uniform with military precision. But the joke was also praise. You had to respect a ballplayer who took his game that seriously. The MC looked at the entrance to the court: “Yo, is that RJ? Shout out to RJ, coach extraordinaire of the Running Rebels and mentor to many.” MCs were like this at games. One minute they were using language to create discomfort; the next they were making everyone feel at home.
“The energy in here is crazy,” Jason remarked as he sat next to me on the sidelines. Two older guys behind us were schooling Jason. “You see the green team? They ain’t never going to figure out the black and gold team. Ain’t never! They are too unorganized, too unfocused. It might take the whole game before they figure them out.” Jason laughed and nodded his head. “Yeah, you’re right.” I was too busy bobbing my head and moving my shoulders to the rap beats to get involved in the conversation. “Yo, what is happening to us, Onaje? This is crazy,” asked Jason. “It’s the beat, it’s gotta be the music,” I responded. “It’s opening up something in us.”
A lanky six-foot-nine player on the green team began prancing toward us with the basketball. He took several long strides into the paint about five feet in front of the rim. With his outstretched right arm holding the ball he took one step and leapt off the floor, ignoring the defender in front of him. At first, I couldn’t wrap my mind around his intentions. He was far away from the basket so I assumed that he would shoot a one-handed floater. Instead he just kept floating upward, higher, now at least one foot above the defender in front of him. At the peak of his ascent, a gasp swept through the crowd. I felt a sudden pause in time as if the whole court was caught inside an infinite moment. His outstretched arm was the only thing that seemed to continue to move on the court. His face was so calm and tranquil as he stood there in the air. Finally this moment, which was “out of joint” from ordinary time, returned to reality. Fear washed over his face. He had become aware of being suspended in midair. Suddenly, he let go of the ball, looked downward, and stumbled back toward the floor. “Oh, my God!” Jason and I yelled with the crowd. It was the greatest play of the tournament, and he had not even touched the rim. “What just happened?” asked Jason. “Yo, I don’t know,” I responded. He had seemed to levitate and soar beyond what was possible. Our imaginations had flown with him.
FLYING, OTHERNESS, AND THE JOY OF HOOPS
Just “like the blues that does not make you sad,” street ball can transmute grief into ecstasy. Having explored the ways grieving the dead is ritualized in hoops in the previous chapter, here I analyze one of the game’s most profound celebratory moments—the dunk.3
If you drive through an urban area populated largely by poor and working-class black people, you may suddenly notice hundreds of residents surrounding a chain-link-fenced blacktop. Some people are sitting on the fence. Others are hanging off it to catch a glimpse of the action inside. It is loud. Anticipatory tension fills the air. If you decide to park your car, walk over toward the crowd, lean up against the fence, and peer inside to the court, you may see a familiar celebration begin to unfold.
A young man dances across the asphalt basketball court under penetrating sun. It seems like the whole city is watching him play. You notice grandmothers sitting in lawn chairs, swaying fans over their noses. Gang members pose on metal bleachers in colors representing their hood. Young women dressed in fine clothes sway hips, stare, and laugh at boys. Old men have their corner of the park as well, telling exaggerated stories of bygone basketball days. Oh, and commuters, many of them white, show up as police officers, referees, and scouts who have come to evaluate young talent for colleges, professional teams, and businesses.
As you look, you begin to focus on the young man at the center of this drama. He wears shorts and sneakers, his bare black chest aching with muscle. For a moment, he scans his surroundings, but now he goes into a defensive stance, crouching on the court, as an opposing player dribbles the ball toward him. His eyes dart in every direction. He sees the ball coming, looks over his left shoulder at the crowd, and peers to his right to find a teammate who has his back. In one fluid, sweat-dripped display of aggression and grace, he strides two long steps toward the ball, and effortlessly snatches it out of his opponent’s hands. The crowd is frenzied now as he strides toward the basket with his opponent on his heels. Desperate not to be caught from behind and five feet from the hoop, he surprises everyone and launches off the pavement into the air, eyes suddenly looking down at the rim. His arms stretch out like a giraffe’s neck with a basketball for a head. He rattles the rim emphatically as the ball flushes through the net and bounces hard off the forehead of his opponent who has just landed underneath him.
As this “bird in flight” comes down from the sky, he begins to celebrate.4 Standing upright on the pavement, he spreads open his legs and arms and stomps. He tilts his head back so his pecs protrude toward the crowd. His bare knuckles pound his black-skinned chest, he screams toward the audience, his eyes bulge, and his mouth gapes open. One of his teammates approaches him, emphatically pointing to his chest and screaming as the crowd spills onto the basketball court to dance with him in frenzy.
So goes the celebration that is street basketball.
An Analysis of the Dunk: A Signified Monkey?
Notice first that the movement of this young man’s body signifies both a symbiotic and an oppositional relationship with his neighborhood and environment, thus embodying the street-basketball world.5
In one sense, his bodily movements conform to normative expectations of the sports industries’ and the street’s image of black masculinity. In other words, his celebration is designed to acquire more capital in the eyes of his audience. He does not consciously think of it this way because his celebration is so routine, but it is possible to read his actions as a marketing strategy. Beating his protruding black chest while screaming toward the crowd bares striking resemblance to the image of a gorilla—an iconic and marketable symbol of black manhood in America. (See LeBron James, for example, on the April 2008 cover of Vogue magazine, holding a basketball while posing like King Kong with the petite white actress Gisele Bundchen in his grasp.)6
It is as if through what Pierre Bourdieu referred to as “learned ignorance” that this man senses (has “a feel for the game”) that a ferocious display of his aching muscle and black skin are the perfect “raw materials” to sell, not only to outsiders and scouts but also to other black onlookers in the streets.7 In this context, black skin is a form of cultural capital, a signal of respect and power in the street-basketball world. Pounding his chest and screaming can also be read as gestures of sexual prowess (bodily capital), reinforcing the stereotype that black men have an extraordinary desire to ravage the bodies of women. Other black male players and audience members (particularly gang members) are also impressed, particularly by the skill and exaggerated muscle flex through which he gains an edge over them (bodily capital). Even as he reenacts a limiting representation of blacks as subhuman gorillas (symbolic violence), on the asphalt this image projects power.8
A Signifying Monkey?
Yet this celebration is not simply a reflection of a racist, capitalist, and patriarchal culture. It is also an ironic reversal and radical critique of the dominant culture’s representation of his body as monkeylike. The act of intensely pounding and pointing to his bare chest also signifies the internal presence of what some of Boston’s black street-ball players refer to as “heart”—that which is innermost, deep, and the vital ground of all of life. In “The Inner Life IV: The Flow Between the Inner and the Outer,” Howard Thurman addressed the religious significance of the heart in the black community and beyond. He wrote that the “heart” is a sign of the inward presence in each human being of “a resource that is as wide as life and as profound as the plunging spirit of man.” This resource is the “nerve center of consent which is in each one of us” and allows us to resist all forms of dehumanization. It is the seat of a kind of embodied knowing that enters the “very ground of vitality…that transcends ALL of the spoken words that I can never understand through formal, discursive processes of mind.”9 Indeed, for this street-ball player, striking his chest also discloses contact with an “unnamed Something” (“an-Other”) in his body, something that cannot be fully shared with words.10 When this young man pounds his heart forcefully in celebration, he is also communicating to his audience: “I am not who you think I am! You will never know the depth of my humanity! No matter how much you try, I cannot be defined!”
By pointing to his heart concealed in his skin, he thus performs an ironic signification on his audience, cleverly turning the presumptive representation of himself as monkeylike into a radical critique of the black simian.11 Frankly, he makes fun of his audience in secret. According to Henry Louis Gates Jr., the art of signifying is a black cultural strategy that shares similarities with the activities of trickster gods in Yoruba religious mythology in Africa and in other black religions in the Americas. To read black cultural practices as if they were “some preordained reality or thing…is to be duped by figuration.”12
But acts of signification are not only designed to trick observers whose folly it is to interpret metaphorical presentations literally.13 Signifying is also an act of mediation that brings the community into the presence of a “more.”14 By performing as tricksters, streetball players become embodiments of the sacred who transport the community to another place.15 As Jason remarked to me when the lanky ballplayer levitated above the paint, “What just happened?” Our imaginations had been transported beyond the confines of the ghetto. Through radical movements and style, these ballplayers communicate this “unnamed Something” and push the community of onlookers to abandon presupposing activities.16 As mediators within the black ritual ground of the court, street-basketball players serve powerful ritual purposes.17 They embody the heart that serves the community by generating joy and hope among the audience.
The pastoral psychologist Gregory C. Ellison II defines hope “as a desire for existential change generated and sustained in a community of reliable others that names difficulties, envisions new possibilities and inspires work toward transformation of self and other.”18 During the Community Awareness Tournament the three rings of the court formed a communal container of “reliable others,” and these caregivers provoked a desire for existential change in Jason and me. Ellison suggests that individuals who possess the ability to feel hope often internalize it through the experience of being cared for by others. Particularly in infancy, a child will internalize the reliability of its parental figures as a basis for developing hopefulness as a basic quality of character. The developmental psychologist Erik Erikson contended that a hopeful personality is actually won or lost in infancy. But Ellison disagrees sharply with Erikson, suggesting that a “hopeful self” can be formed outside of the immediate family and into adulthood.
This “generativist” view of hope is critical for Ellison because he serves “a population of African American young men who are substantially at risk of being muted and made invisible. This muteness and invisibility threatens hope and results from numerous factors[:]…fewer opportunities for higher educations…incarceration…dehumanizing portrayals in history and the modern media…. Lacking positive recognition and affirmation early in life, the development of a hopeful self may prove challenging.”19 A question worth asking then, is where and when do marginalized young black men in U.S. cities engender hope?
Celebratory practices on street-basketball courts can serve as important generators of hope among this population of invisible black men. As with the dunk celebration, street-ball-community members have the capacity to become “reliable others,” sharing their “heart” and responding with recognition and joy. When teammates point to each other’s chests and scream in frenzy, they function as empathic mirrors, countering muteness and invisibility among themselves. As tricksters, these ballplayers sustain human life in the absence of the material means to do so, “nam[ing] difficulties, envision[ing] new possibilities, and inspir[ing]” through the style with which they play the game.
Striking the chest, therefore, is both a strategy designed to obtain power and favor and a dance through which street-ball players play with the ineffable.20 This double meaning, as an expression of what W. E. B. Du Bois called “double consciousness,”21 illustrates the creative relationship between the “hardness of life” that black street-ball players endure within an opaque culture and the religious experience that permeates its facade. In these communities’ ritualized experiences of grieving and celebrating on the court, players are attempting to become aware of their humanity in a dehumanizing situation and are struggling to assert and express the same in social life.
After we watched a couple more games during the Community Awareness Tournament, our hearts aflutter, Jason and I made our way toward the exit. C.J. had wandered off into the crowd somewhere, and Sticks and Julie had left almost immediately after our game was done. (I later discovered that Julie felt out of place, sitting in a sea of black people near the court, unceasing noise of rap beats in her ears.) Jason and I, however, were overjoyed. The music, the smells, the game, the people, and the dunk: our bodies had been unburdened. Near the exit we spotted a group of older women and young men selling sweet barbecued and fried chicken. Their shirts read “Chicken Gawds.” We were in heaven. Food in hand, we exited the doorway and returned to the streets of Roxbury.