“The Fault Lines in Midwestern Racism Run Deep,” by Amaud Jamaul Johnson

Poetry faculty member Amaud Jamaul Johnson was recently featured in LitHub. Read an excerpt of “The Fault Lines in Midwestern Racism Run Deep” below.

I moved to Madison, Wisconsin in the fall of 2000. My wife was starting a teaching position, and I was still trying to “find myself” as a writer. Money Magazine had recently named Madison the #1 place to live in the US, so this seemed like a great place to land. After leaving Compton for college, I crisscrossed the country, living in DC, New York, Atlanta, and Oakland. The Midwest was the frontier. I’ve lived in deeply segregated communities my whole life, but I rarely experienced being the only Black person in a room. For me, the opposite was true; the white world was elsewhere, in other neighborhoods or on TV. Wisconsin is a lovely state. We actually live in our dream home, a lovely Colonial. I bike and hike; I ice skate and cross-country ski; I’ve become an amateur sommelier of craft beer, but I’m also a kind of mascot, a pet Negro, that one Black body in the coffee shop, or at the private pool; I’ve become everyone’s one Black friend, the anchor of every “one drop” diversity initiative, everything short of a drummer. Maybe a year ago, I was out alone having lunch, and a woman approached me. She placed her hand on my shoulder and said: “I’m so glad you’re here.” I felt like Sticks walking into Arnold’s. I’m concerned that I exist to improve the political capital of my neighbors. Is the purpose of my life the cultural enrichment of a white community? Was that my grandmother’s dream when I left for college? 

Read the essay in its entirety here: https://lithub.com/the-fault-lines-of-midwestern-racism-run-deep/