Four days a week, I wake at 4:50 a.m. and start my exercise routine. Thursday is the only day that I don’t exercise. I still wake at 4:50 a.m., but I mow the yard and wash both cars. I’ve been doing that since I was in my twenties, when I was renting a house before I purchased my own home. The Thursday routine was instilled in me by my pops who always cut his yard on Thursday, mostly because his work as a juvenile youth counselor and a member of the Mississippi Democrat Executive Committee meant that his weekends were too busy for yard work. However, the notion that mowing one’s yard and maintaining one’s home is a primary responsibility of a citizen was instilled in me from the womb by my pops, grandpops, and just about every person in my Clarksdale and Jackson communities. You care for your home and your community because it’s your home and your community regardless of economic circumstances. Pride was instilled in me along with a sense that I am significant and that my black communities are significant as I watched black folks maintain their homes and yards as a reflection of their own pride. To be clear, this is not about a materialistic fetish. Being from Clarksdale, Mississippi, I knew people who were too poor to afford grass. Yet, six days a week, someone in that household woke before daybreak and swept their dirt until it looked like carpet or marble. That well-kept dirt yard signified that the household didn’t define itself by how much money they had but by how much they loved themselves. If you love yourself, you’ll care for yourself in every possible way.
Unfortunately, for me, by the time I became twelve, it was made clear that self-care is inextricably tied to communal care. By that age, I wasn’t only responsible for mowing my family’s yard. I had the responsibility of mowing the yard of any elderly person or woman who didn’t have a man or teenage son living in that house. As such, shout out to Anthony Edmond, Carl Edmond, Michael Edmond, Timothy Edmond, Michael Sims, Roosevelt “Mane” Noah, Victor Ivy, Michael Ivy, Robert “Jody” Willis, Alfred Allen, George Fisher, John Fisher, Mike “MT Missile” Taylor, Ricky Graham, Albert “Junior” Graham, Eric Clowers, Allen “Junior” Harper, and all the teen boys and young men that have carried this mission with me either in Clarksdale or Jackson. From the age of twelve to eighteen, each of us understood that we would mow at least two yards that day. It was a communal ritual that generally occurred between 7:00 a.m. and noon. As a teen, you were no longer watching Saturday morning cartoons, but you did want to finish before noon to catch the local wrestling aka wrastlin’ program (Shout out to Rocky “Soul Man” Johnson, Junk Yard Dog, Bill “Superstar” Dundee, Jerry “The King” Lawyer, and the entire Memphis wrastlin’ family that aired on channel 5) or whatever game would be on by noon. (Of course, all of this was suspended or rescheduled between September and November because each of us was a member of a Jackson State, Alcorn, or Mississippi Valley Family, and nothing came before HBCU Football! For those of y’all not from the South, we tend to mow our yards or mow leaves well into November. I’ve even mowed leaves the weekend of Thanksgiving.) For six years of my life, I was part of a collective of young men being trained to maintain our community through the simple act of mowing yards.
So, y’all can imagine my surprise in my mid-twenties when two little black boys who couldn’t have been more than eight or nine stopped me one summer day after mowing my yard to say, “My momma ‘nem say you think you white.” I knew those li’l boys and a li’l bit about their situation. Many years later, I even published a short story in Obsidian loosely based on my interaction with them and a few other young people in my, then, Washington Addition neighborhood just around the corner from Jackson State. By this time, the community had completely changed, and the vast majority of residents were renters rather than homeowners. Still, even as a renter myself, I understood the importance of mowing my yard. So, as the two young boys stood there with perfectly round chocolate and caramel faces and eyes like shiny bo dollars, waiting on a response from me to verify if I thought I was white, I responded, “So, why does your momma ‘nem say that I think that I’m white?”
And, quick as a flash, they responded in unison, “‘Cause you be out here every week mowing yo’ grass like it’s yo’ grass, and you kno’ damn well this ain’t yo’ grass.”
Since I realized that they were merely parroting the adults in their lives, I let the “damn well” slide. But, I did respond with, “If I don’t cut my yard, who’s supposed to cut it.”
Again, ready with an answer, one of them replied, “That’s the job of the rent man!”
By the way, he didn’t call me dumbass, but I’m sure that y’all can guess that his tone implied that, if he were older, he would have included a dumbass in his statement. To which, I responded, “What if he doesn’t cut the grass how I like it cut or when I want it cut?”
They returned, “Then it just won’t get cut.”
I knew that to be true because their yard hadn’t been cut since Jerry “All World” Rice had left Mississippi Valley, and it was now 1995. So, I simply ended with, “You do know, when you don’t cut your grass, that allows rats, snakes, and roaches to have an easy place to live and multiply?”
The looks on their faces shifted, and their tone softened with one asking, “That’s why we got so many rats and roaches in our house?” The other one nudged him as to remind him to keep family business in the house.
I simply added, “Yes, unkempt yards are a big reason why folks have rats, snakes, and roaches. So, if you are sick of having those rodents in your house, I suggest that you get to mowing your yard.” They both looked at me puzzled, so I continued in a more inquisitive tone, “Unless…you like living with rats?”
The other one replied, “Hell nawl we don’t like living with no rats, but we ain’t got no mow.”
I looked at my mow, which I had probably gotten from Walmart, I looked at them, back at my mow, and, then, pushed it toward them and said, “Now, you do.” Then, another thought hit me. So, I picked up the gas can, shook it to ensure that gas was in it, and said, while extending the gas can, “Y’all will need this as well.”
They hesitated for a few seconds. But, my wife, Monica, already had a rapport with them because she, unbeknownst to me at the time, gave snacks to the elementary and middle-school children each day after school. So while it was odd that I was giving them a lawnmower with a gas can on the side, they had already received kindness from my household via my wife. Thus, they meekly took the mower and can and began pushing it down the street. As they were walking away, one turned to the other and said, “See, I knew he thought that he was white. Who else just gives someone a brand new mow that ain’t nothing wrong with it?” To which, the other one replied, “Shut up befo’ he take it back.” And, yes, they did begin mowing their yard regularly. And, y’all know I’m petty. So, about a month later, as I was driving by their house, they were sitting in their yard after just mowing it. I rolled down the window and said, “Y’all must think y’all white.” They gave me that corny-ass old man look, and I added, “My wife said for y’all to come get something to drink once y’all finish.” I might have been corny, but they came for those sodas.
This memory returned to me after watching comic Trevor Noah discuss how his mother volunteered to mow a neighbor’s yard as a way to care for their neighborhood (here). While it’s a different circumstance, the message or lesson is the same. Each of us has a responsibility to care for ourselves. Yet, often, caring for ourselves involves caring for others, even the others who might be destroying the community. I always state that black people have a dual fight as we battle white supremacy and Negro ineptitude simultaneously. This often means that a few black people are doing the work that should be done by the entire community. Yet, as traditional African-American values and sensibilities have been altered, changed, or abandoned for a myriad of reasons, there are not as many black folks doing the work to protect, salvage, rebuild, and grow our community. But, when this reality becomes discouraging, I remember my teenage lesson about mowing yards. And, rather than focus on the enormity of tasks or the overwhelming range of issues facing black folks, I simply perceive each problem as another yard to mow, and I mow them, one at a time, for as long as it takes to reclaim and rebuild our community.