New York 2015
All of my previous visits to New York were always reasons to never go back. I hated it. And every time I had to go back, I resented it more.
The first time was when my brother took me to the world premier for the movie “Strange Days” where I went to my first night club (for the cast party-I was only 16). I was temporarily traumatized by my first exposure to celebrities in dark corners, drag queens, androgynous go-go dancers, tattooed people carrying snakes, Nazis ironing books, and I swear I saw Gordon from Sesame Street dancing in leather chaps.
The second time was when I was on a choir tour with my college and one of the girls in the group took us to ground zero soon after 911 happened to help the workers clean things up. When it became apparent she was using it as a tool to appear more righteous than others (as they often did in my private Christian college), I snuck away and sat in a small church around the corner and listened to students from Juilliard rehearse for a recital.
The third time was when I went with my best friend in grad school in the freeze of January right after we both went through life-crippling breakups. We went in vain to audition for greater operatic futures on the opposite side of the country looking for an out from our heartbreak. We didn’t get what we went there for – however, we dressed in Tina Turner wigs and drank too much in the deepest cold we’d every experienced. Strangely, it helped.
(You’ll have to read my book to get all the details of those crazy experiences.)
THIS visit was different. I was training for my new career-changing job that I’d worked hard for after I’d officially retired from opera. I had three profound conversations with some very interesting people that reinforced my view of the world. I never liked New York City during any of my previous visits but going alone this time and having these conversations had me leaving with one of the most bittersweet profound moments of my life. And for me, that’s saying a lot.
Conversation #1: COMING TO AMERICA
Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall in “Coming to America” (1988)
During a lunch break, I decided to walk around my building and explore a bit. I came across an entirely abandoned floor without walls but with a vast stretch of windows. I walked toward the windows. As I got closer, I realized I was looking directly into the side of the Empire State Building. I pressed my forehead against the lonely summer-heated window and looked down at the street a dozen stories down. Tourists were walking in and out of the main entrance of the Empire State, locals were rushing in and out of Starbucks, buses and taxis were honking horns in harmony. I thought about how much I’d changed each time I came to this strange human jungle, could I possibly live here one day?…
“Hello, Mr. Sir?”
I whipped around startled. Out of the shadows walks one of the blackest men I’ve ever seen. He smiles one of the best and disarming smiles I’ve ever encountered.
I responded in a tone that nearly gave away my fear that I was in trouble for trespassing, “Yes?”
His stance was passive with his eyes beaming upwards at mine even though he was taller than me. “I was told to come to you.”
“Oh? By who?”
“I was told to speak to the boss man about a new position.”
“I’m sorry sir, but I’m not the right person. I am no one’s boss.”
“But you are the only white man I’ve seen around here,” my eyebrows jumping in shock, “plus you are big and have white on your hair.”
“I’m sorry, I…” stuck on words- which is rare, “That does NOT make me a boss.” It had been a long time since I’d been that uncomfortable or shocked. I’ve known a number of white men who held that old-school B.S. social hierarchical view but this was the first black man I’d met who believed it.
“I’m so sorry sir, I didn’t know. Where I’m from, people like you are the boss over people like me.”
I looked sadly at this man at least four decades old but at most 1 week American. “Where are you from?”
“Rwanda, sir.”
“Oh, wow!” I walk up to him and extend my hand, “welcome to America.”
Laughing and shaking back, “Thank you, sir.”
“I’m Bryan.”
“Innocent.”
My shaking hand screeches to a halt, “for real?”
“What do you mean – for real?”
“Your name is innocent? The opposite of guilty?”
“Oh yes sir,” with a huge smile, “strange, eh?”
“No, not strange – just unique. I like it.”
“So is Bryan.”
Laughing, “Oh, not in America.”
“My name is common too where I come from.”
“So, tell me Innocent, which boss are you looking for?”
He proceeds to tell me how he’s looking for a boss from a different company that works in the same building. He’s looking for better opportunities than the menial jobs that he keeps getting offered because he is a refugee. He opened up to me, as strangers seem to easily do. He wants nothing more than to be a boss to feed his children and, naturally, his pride. I could read his sadness behind his smile. He believed there was more out there and he believed his mother’s old-school belief that America was still the land of opportunity that it was during the post-war boom. He had no knowledge of the Civil Right’s movement in this country – just as most Americans don’t understand the severe racial problems that are in his. He mentioned how he had come to learn that he needs a college degree to get to where he wants to go but he has no money for that.
“Innocent – you are very strong and I see something in you you may not realize. Deep down, you truly believe you can do it, don’t you?”
He smiles.
“Now listen, I am no one’s boss and I’m certainly not your boss. The world has slowly been changing since our grandfathers’ time but it has changed enough to where you can be my boss and you don’t need a college degree to do it.”
“But…”
I could never truly understand what it’s like to be in his shoes, but I empathized enough to be able to show him the different paths before him that he can walk in those shoes. I explained how I have two degrees in music and that no one becomes a boss like he wants to be or makes good money the way he wants to from those degrees. I explained to him how good companies will help him pay for classes and even college and the best bosses will help him to become a boss. I told him my story of the struggle to change my career from the ground level – without getting another degree- and gave him contact information and websites for ways of getting to where he wanted to go.
He shook my hand ecstatic- It was nice to see hope again – He could do it, and I could tell he will. “Thank you Mr. Sir! I won’t let you down.”
Laughing but serious, “Stop calling me sir!”
“Yes Mr. Bryan.”
Well… it’s a start.
“And don’t worry about letting me down. I am no one. Worry about letting yourself down. Only you can make you who you want to be… And don’t let anyone in this country tell you that you can’t be a boss because you are African: Hutu, Tutsi, or Twa – or that anyone has more a right to be your boss just because they are a big white man who is as grey-haired as me.”
“Thank you Mr. Bryan. You are a good boss and I hope you will be my boss one day.”
“No, I hope you will be mine.”
I Can't Take Me Anywhere 