Lineage of Care
An essay about the people we reach for
In basketball terms, Demontez Stitt wasn’t tall. But for 8th grade me, he was a giant. Someone I looked up to. Someone the city looked up to. We moved to Charlotte, North Carolina before the beginning of my 7th grade year. All I wanted was to don the basketball uniform emblazoned with the name of my middle school. I didn’t make the cut that first year, but I did watch Chris Leak from Independence High School, which sat right outside my neighborhood, lead the Florida Gators to a BCS National Championship victory over Ohio State. Before that, he had led Independence to three straight state championships.
As my 7th grade year rolled on, I also met Josh Humphrey, who played basketball at Butler, Independence’s rival high school the town over. Josh introduced me to Lil Wayne’s music, loading up my iPod with songs like “Hustler Musik” from Tha Carter II and “They Still Like Me” from Dedication 2. That is until my mom heard what I was listening to and made me delete it. That summer, Josh also invited me to basketball camp at Butler where I met his teammate, Demontez, for the first time. They were counselors at the camp, and I thought I was the coolest for getting to hang out with them, even if it was just running drills and playing during the occasional shootaround.
Demontez went off to Clemson that summer where he became the first men’s basketball player in Clemson history to start on four NCAA tournament teams. Years removed from living in Charlotte, I still call it home because Charlotte is the first city where I consciously realized I was being shaped by people in the city. Charlotte is the first city where I had heroes I could touch. Or where they at least felt close enough that it wasn’t far-fetched I could know them or run into them. I remember running into Muggsy Bogues uptown one time. A staple on the short king’s vision board. A model for the players after whom I modeled my game.
Now, I find myself yet again in a city that puffs itself up through the invocation of its local legends. A city I call home. I knew Columbus, Ohio would be home before I knew any of its legends because of the love I was moving there for. But I also needed a haircut. I knew Hanif Abdurraqib was from Columbus. I hadn’t read any of his books, only heard him on a podcast or two. But knowing Hanif was a Black man in the city, who wrote poems like I did, I messaged him on Facebook and asked him where I should go to get my hair cut. As I was leaving Niko’s Barbershop for the first time, Hanif walked in and I introduced myself, thanking him for helping me find a solid line up.
Almost five years since I first moved to Columbus, my friends and I recently joined a room full of people at Two Dollar Radio for the 5th anniversary of Hanif’s They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us. In discussing his upcoming 2024 book release, Hanif talked about his first time seeing someone from where he’s from do something monumental and what it meant to him. What it means for all of us. How it expands our understanding of what’s possible. It got me thinking about who those people have been for me.
Growing up between Baltimore and D.C., I remember my dad taking me to Modell’s as a kid to meet Jamal Lewis, who had just helped the Ravens win the Super Bowl in his rookie year. Sharing a last name, I could picture myself suiting up in pads and one day winning a Super Bowl myself. In North Carolina, I had Demontez and Josh and never missed an opportunity to say Chris Leak and Hakeem Nicks went to high school near me. I remember seeing John Wall hold records at states for track & field in my high school’s conference. When I got to Elon University, we had Aaron Mellette, who went on to get drafted as a receiver by the Ravens after my freshman year. I looked up to these athletes because they made my world feel bigger. I felt like my light shined a little brighter by being in some form of proximity to theirs. In a way, I still feel that now.
I‘ve often been drawn to older male role models for reasons I assume have to do with me growing up around mostly women. But when I moved to Colorado Springs after graduating from Elon, a group of young poets opened my heart and imagination. A new friend recommended I go to this youth poetry slam in the city. I had spent a few months in Colorado Springs a couple of years prior and hadn’t heard of anything like this. I had also never been to a poetry slam before and didn’t really know what to expect. First off, none of those of those kids had on a beret like that girl in An Extremely Goofy Movie, so I was already on unfamiliar ground. But as poet after poet got up, their ages ranging from middle school to high school, I saw them pour out what felt like their deepest darkest secrets in a room full of strangers. Yet it was the most at home I’d felt in the city.
For the next two years, those poets became my compass for how I wanted to plant myself in a place I knew wouldn’t be my physical home for long. I wanted more people to see what was “hiding” in the city. I envisioned a platform where those poets, and others like them, could share their writing with the community in an accessible way. Starting with 1x1 notecards, I invited writers I knew to contribute a stanza or two for me to write on the cards and place on people’s car windows. I called the project, Car Window Poetry. Eventually, through trial, plenty error, and help from a classmate who interned at NBC, Car Window Poetry earned a spot on NBC Nightly News and evolved into people in countries around the world writing poems and putting them on people’s car windows.
Demontez died suddenly of a heart attack that summer. He was 27. After graduating from Clemson in 2011, he played pro basketball in Israel, Turkey, Belgium, and Kosovo. Years removed from dribbling around with Demontez at Butler High School’s gym, the thing I remember most is how he took time with me. And as a kid reaching for Demontez at that time, it felt attainable because he made himself close.
I’ve since given up my sports dreams, channeling them only into the hope that one day I’ll be able to see a Denver Nuggets championship. But as we near the end of 2022 and prepare to see what comedy of errors 2023 has in store, I recognize how I’ve changed. What’s been made possible. Now, I dream of writing. Not in the sense that I aspire towards certain accolades, but that I’m curious about what writing can become for me. In a full-circle moment, my homie Koku and I recently had Hanif on our podcast, Alex + Koku. In talking about the writer Wil Haygood, Hanif shared, “I believe he’s a part of my writing lineage. He’s from the east side of Columbus. And when I was a kid, he was the first person I knew who was a writer.” Hanif continued, “Because he was someone I was reaching for, he was a part of my lineage… I sometimes think lineage is not always built through direct contact; it’s built through an ongoing contact with the reality that someone’s life is built before you.”
In celebration and mourning of the prolific author Joan Didion, Vanity Fair recently published an essay from Maggie Rogers in which she wrote, “The artists who turn us into artists are like family.” As I write towards some sort of future in Columbus, Ohio, Hanif is my family. He’s the first person I knew in this city who was a writer. And just as Hanif talks about driving by the street named after Wil Haygood anytime he’s headed home, I see reminders of Hanif all around the city. I see him in our proclivity for care. I see him in rappers Dom Deshawn, Joey Aich & OG Vern and how they show up for one another. I see him in my brothers, the Writing Boys, and how we write for ourselves and each other.
Throughout the essay, Maggie Rogers reiterates a line from Joan Didion’s The White Album, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” And the story I’m telling myself is that I am borne from the things I love and the people and moments that have shaped me. A few months ago, Nate and I went to CreativeMornings and saw Andy J. Pizza, another artist in Columbus who makes this city feel like home, and he shared, “You are not something to overcome. You are meant to be cultivated. That’s what you do to good things. And I believe humans are good things.”
While I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions, I’m curious about continuing to cultivate the things that make me me. The stories that keep me alive. The belief that another word is possible, if we show up for one another and fight for it. I believe our lineage can be one of care.
