482. Church, a Cigar, Karaoke, and a Bulletproof Vest

BROWDERBOOKS

I am now attempting to promote online my latest nonfiction title, New Yorkers: A Feisty People Who Will Unsettle, Madden, Amuse and Astonish You.  This involves such esoterica as CTRs (click-through rates), ePub files, ARCs (advance review copies), and tweets to a 250k audience.  So far, frustration and a waste of gobs of time.  (You will find the book on my website.)

                 Church, a Cigar, Karaoke,   

                     and a Bulletproof Vest 

I love the diversity of New York,  the vast number of people and their interests, many of them --  both people and interests -- so different from me and mine.  An example: Hawk Newsome, 43, a 300-pound bearded African American, cofounder and chairman of Black Lives Matter Greater New York.  A formidable presence, he can easily be imagined leading marches in the streets, which he in fact does do.  He lives with his sister, cofounder of the group, and with his mother and his 18-year-old son in the South Bronx, but has marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, and in Minneapolis and New York.  His three-year-old daughter lives with her mother elsewhere.

His day, as told to a New York Times journalist:

• He wakes up, opens his Bible to see what the Scripture of the day is.
• Next, he checks his social media messages and phone calls.
• Next, he smokes a cigar, "my only vice."
• Next, he kisses his son on the forehead, and if the son says he's hungry, he gets his breakfast.
• He does a form of yoga.
• Back in bed, he makes the necessary phone calls.
• He chats with his sister, the only person he can "vent" to. 
• On Sunday mornings he goes to church in Harlem, and in the evening attends a "rock 'n' roll karaoke church" full of young people, where a preacher preaches in skinny jeans.
• If there's an early rally, he showers, dresses, puts on his bulletproof vest, and being too big to fit in a car, drives a truck to the rally.
• In the early afternoon he meets his team and they say a prayer and march to the rally.
• They march at the back of the protesters, the last line between them and the police, who follow in cars.
• They check in at the rally, do security sweeps, and give their speeches. 
• When it gets dark, they drop out of the march as a unit.
• They go by truck to a vegan restaurant in Harlem and eat out of the trucks, while reviewing the day's events.
• Still outside, he answers e-mails and texts, including repeated phone calls from his mother, who wants him to order eats for her.
• Back home, he calls his daughter and sings her songs, then puts on a mask when his son comes home, so they can wrestle.

Quite a day.  And this is only a local rally, maybe involving 2,000 people.  Though he doesn't mention it, presumably he squeezes in breakfast and lunch.

Source note:  This post was inspired by the article "Hawk Newsome," in the Metropolitan section of the New York Times of Sunday, October 4, 2020, and derives most of its content from it.

Coming soon:  Are book contests a fraud?

©  2020  Clifford Browder