THE MYTH OF THE MORAL MIDDLE
THE FIRST TIME I FOUND MYSELF FACING A political dilemma was in the year 1976; I was 5 years old. My parents were what we used to call “movement people,” veterans of the civil rights movement who leaned toward black nationalism and pan-Africanism. My name, Tayari, was brought back from a family friend’s research trip to Kenya. Tayari means “ready” in Kiswahili, an East African lingua franca. My older brother, Patrice Lumumba, was named after the African nationalist and first Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, who was assassinated 1961. My folks were not coy about raising us with an agenda.
In 1976, I was very concerned with South African apartheid. Tacked to the wall in our wood-paneled basement was a poster depicting a woman who carried a baby on her back and a rifle strapped across her chest. The caption announced:
