In Black Arms to Hold You Up, the Ignatz Award winner sends his cartoon avatar time traveling through Black history.
How did this graphic nonfiction work come about?
My first introduction to the Black radical tradition and Black history—outside of brief mentions of slavery and a paragraph about Martin Luther King Jr.—came when I was institutionalized in a reform school and was in detention in the library. I found a book called Look Out, Whitey! Black Power’s Gon’ Get Your Mama! that started me on a trajectory of reading more about Black radicals.
In my early 30s, I had become an insufferable anarchist, wrapped up in regular political activity. I had hit a wall and was looking for some guidance. Some people would have looked to their parents, but in my case, that wasn’t an option because my parents were either white and racist, or absent. I found another book called The Black Panther Party (Reconsidered) by rank-and-file Panthers who wanted to fight against the revisionism of both pro- and anti-Panther people. The comic is a retelling of things I’ve learned over the years, and my relationship to how this information raised me. I was very much parented by my close study of these ideas and struggles and the communities around them.
Ben goes on a journey from self-protective apathy to changing his name to Kuwasi Balagoon. To what extent did that mirror your own political journey?
This is ultimately fictional, but it also pulls from my life—I wanted to write about a generational divide around these topics. My father [in the book] is introducing me to Marcus Garvey, the Republic of New Afrika, all these figures. In some books, we’re supposed to take it at face value that this is a good thing—I wanted to introduce the complexities and contradictions. My dad is representing this older generation who had no institutional support, no cultural support outside of Black people. There’s a certain kind of stereotype of, like, a Hotep as someone who’s a bit overly serious and changes their name to an African name. It’s a kind of pantomime figure that people my age grew up with.
Why was it important to use humor in this story?
I know that the topic is heavy, and I hate to be dry. This history for me is exciting and gives me a lot of hope. I would hate for any reader to feel like the book is a chore. I want to keep it entertaining, since we’re talking about a minority population fighting an intergenerational war against fascism. Light stuff!
How do you hope your book will be received?
Memory outside of empire is being torn down as we speak, so it feels important to me as a cartoonist to let people know that there’s more to know.