Note–today is the last day I’ll be sending notifications unless something particularly special is going on. Since I update daily, and frequently update more than once a day, I’m causing a backup in people’s inboxes. So, check the site on your own. If you check around noon Easter time, you’ll almost always get the latest update. I apologize to anyone who is inconvenienced by this, but I know I’ve been burdening a few people since my output increased. I’ll notify if I have a piece running, but that’s about all.
Anyhoo, it’s been a couple of days since I was at the airport, but I had to share this story.

So I’m at the counter trying to get my boarding pass. Due to an acute lack of sleep, I was looking on the machine for my reservation by putting my destination as RDU. That would be great if I were flying into RDU, but I was going to Atlanta.
That meant I had to get the lady at the counter to help me out because there was no way that the self-serve machine was going to find a reservation that didn’t exist. To do this, the nice white lady needed to see my ID.
As you might imagine, my name–Bomani Babatunde Jones–struck her. So much so that she asked me a question…
“How did you wind up with those first two names and then Jones?”
I wanted to give her an answer that someone gave to Henry Louis “Skip” Gates when he worked at Dook. Tayari did a summer program there years ago, and Skip rolled up on some rather militant looking character and asked him why he was so mad at white people. The boy’s answer?
“Slavery, muthafucka!”
So how did I wind up with a name like that? Slavery, baby.
What? It’s the truth!
See, can’t just talk about slavery around everyone. White folks tend to get a little nervous about slavery. Makes a few feel compelled to apologize, even though they haven’t owned anyone. Never makes any of them feel compelled to relinquish some of that privilege, but that’s neither here nor there.
Here’s the funny part about people getting nervous about slavery–they tend not do know just how foul slavery was.
Man, this wasn’t just about not getting paychecks. It ain’t even just about women getting raped and the thoughts of how dreadful that big cruise from Africa had to have been.
It’s about mining slaves’ gums so massa could replace lost teeth. Basically, it was about being totally at the disposal of the slave owner. It’s about being a virtual Mr. Potato Head for another man, a repository of whatever might be needed at any given time.
Come to think of it, shouldn’t we be the ones that aren’t comfortable talking about slavery?
Anyway, that moment is why I refuse to let strangers call me by any nickname until they learn my name. My name is part of me, both first and middle having meanings I take seriously.
Bomani—>Mighty Warrior. Nope, the parents didn’t expect me to be this skinny when they came up with that one.
Babatunde—>Return of the Father. My father’s father died about fifteen months before I was born, and I was the first male Jones born after he passed. Hence, Return of the Father. It’s unlikely Granddaddy Clifton would appreciate my aversion to organized religion–he was an AME minister–but he’s always sounded like my kinda guy.
So how did I wind up with a name like that? By the grace of God, even if I ain’t sure about that whole God thing.
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Interviewing Bun B at noon EDT. Shoot me an e-mail if you’ve got any questions you’d like answered. If I get the question in time, there’s a chance I’ll ask it.