• Notes on the Interregnum
• Sidik Fofana (bio)

I don't like to write about politics. I don't like to write about politics because I don't care about politics. I do care, but not that much. Generally, I see people get angry and I think, Why can't I get that angry?

I pretend sometimes. I pretend because I'm a teacher and a writer and that means I'm supposed to be smart. Smart people are supposed to care about politics. But my confession is I'm oblivious. I didn't know what Mike Pence looked like until the vice presidential debate. I didn't know the New York governor's voice until I heard him talking about school closures. I don't know what Dick Cheney looks like. I know who Elizabeth Warren is, but not when I should have, and still her face is blurry to me. I know who Bernie Sanders is, but not when I should have. The same for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. During the primaries, my acquaintances drop the names of candidates and often I pray they don't ask my opinion. Other times, I am defiant in my mind. I tell myself, If they ask me about so-and-so, I will simply say, "Who is that?"

White people—the ones who didn't vote for him—are angry [End Page 319] about Trump. Sometimes, it's scary to watch. I'm angry, but not that angry. The Black people I know are angry too, but in general not as angry as the whites. The Blacks are angry. Don't misconstrue that. They are marching. They are on the bullhorn. But at my job, white people are more likely to denounce Trump than Black people are. Why is this? I've thought about it a lot. The world is going to shreds. Why am I not riled up? I've thought and thought about it and could only come up with one reason: because I'm Black.

White people, generally, get to live in a world they created. Black people, generally, live in a world created for them. A white person's anger is, "This is not the world I want to live in." A Black person's anger is, "Alas, this is one more fucked-up reality I have to face." They're two different sentiments. A Black person is angry, but she is also resigned because she has spent all her life living in a space she has had no input in shaping.

I'm from Boston. I'm from a neighborhood called Roxbury. It's the same neighborhood Malcolm X lived in. It's the same neighborhood Bobby Brown is from, and NBA point guard Shabazz Napier. I'm proud of where I'm from, but it can be a very rough place. The year before I started middle school, a boy was shot because he wouldn't give up his sneakers. When people think of Boston, they think of a milky-white city, but remember that there are always two Americas. My parents came to Boston in 1976 from West Africa, and they could only afford to live in one of three neighborhoods: Mattapan, Dorchester, or Roxbury. They happen to be the Blackest and the poorest. The three-family house I grew up in wasn't even a house before we moved in. Well, it was a house, but it was abandoned and gutted out. The mayor had this program that if you could scrape together five hundred dollars for a down payment, you could petition the city to fix the house up for you since nobody else wanted it. That's what my family did. When a white person moves to Massachusetts, they can move to Cambridge, to Brookline, to [End Page 320] Scituate, to Needham, anywhere they want. A Black person is constricted mostly to one of these three neighborhoods. It is not redlining but something more invisible and more insidious. To this day, when I meet a white person from Boston, it is almost always an awkward conversation. I ask them which part and they say Wellesley or Natick or Chestnut Hill. They ask me...

• 关于间隔的注释
• 西迪克·福法纳（Sidik Fofana）（生物）

我不喜欢写有关政治的文章。我不喜欢写政治，因为我不在乎政治。我确实在乎，但并不多。通常，我看到人们会生气，我想，为什么我不能那么生气？

我有时会假装。我装作是因为我既是老师又是作家，所以我应该很聪明。聪明的人应该关心政治。但是我的表白是我遗忘了。在副总统辩论之前，我不知道迈克·彭斯长什么样。在听到纽约州长谈论学校停课之前，我不知道他的声音。我不知道迪克·切尼是什么样子。我知道伊丽莎白·沃伦（Elizabeth Warren）是谁，但我什么时候不知道，她的脸对我仍然模糊。我知道伯尼·桑德斯是谁，但我什么时候知道。亚历山大·奥卡西奥·科尔特斯（Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez）也是如此。在初选期间，我的熟人会删除候选人的名字，而我经常祈祷他们不要问我的意见。其他时候，我在脑子里反抗。我告诉自己，如果他们问某某某某事，我只会说：

白人-那些没有投票支持他的人-对特朗普感到愤怒[End Page 319]。有时候，这很令人恐惧。我很生气，但没有那么生气。黑我认识的人很生气过，但一般没有生气的白人。黑人很生气。不要误解这一点。他们在前进。他们在扩音器上。但是在我的工作中，白人比黑人更有可能谴责特朗普。为什么是这样？我已经考虑了很多。世界将被粉碎。为什么我不生气呢？我已经考虑过，只能提出一个原因：因为我是黑人。

通常，白人可以生活在他们创造的世界中。通常，黑人生活在为他们创造的世界中。白人的愤怒是：“这不是我想要生活的世界。” 黑人的愤怒是，“ A，这是我还要面对的另一种现实。” 他们是两种不同的观点。一个黑人很生气，但她也辞职，因为她一生都在一个她没有塑造的空间里生活。

我来自波士顿。我来自一个叫Roxbury的社区。这是Malcolm X住过的同一个社区。BobbyBrown和NBA控卫后卫Shabazz Napier是同一个社区。我为自己的家乡而感到自豪，但这可能是一个非常艰难的地方。在我上初中的前一年，一个男孩因为不放弃运动鞋而被枪杀。当人们想到波士顿时，他们想到的是乳白色的城市，但请记住，总是有两个美洲。我的父母于1976年从西非来到波士顿，他们只能负担得起三个街区之一：马塔潘（Mattapan），多切斯特（Dorchester）或罗克斯伯里（Roxbury）。他们碰巧是最黑和最贫穷的人。我长大的那套三口之家在我们搬进来之前根本不是一所房子。恩，那是一所房子，但被遗弃并毁坏了。市长的这个计划是，如果您能凑齐五百美元的首付款，您就可以向市政府请愿为您修理房子，因为没人愿意。那是我家人所做的。当白人搬到马萨诸塞州时，他们可以搬到剑桥，布鲁克林，[完第320页]将其放置在Needham所需的任何地方。黑人主要局限于这三个街区之一。它不是在变红，而是更隐蔽和更阴险的东西。直到今天，当我遇到一个来自波士顿的白人时，几乎总是一个尴尬的谈话。我问他们哪一部分，他们说Wellesley或Natick或Chestnut Hill。他们问我...