Throwback Thursday: Black Leaders, Jamal Bryant and Boo Hags In the Hood

A look back at "Black leaders."

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This article originally appeared on May 27, 2016.

Succubus – (n.) A demon who steals the souls of men by having sex with them while they are asleep.

Every culture has a soul thief.

Just as white folklore features stories of succubi, bloodsucking vampires and dealmaking devils (like the one who went down to Georgia with a golden fiddle), Gullah Geechee mythology features a similarly haunting psychopomp known for stealing the souls of the living.

We called it a “Boo Hag.”

Instead of using vampire hypnosis techniques, the African-American spirit thief also attacks its targets while they are asleep. However, the Gullah Geechee version of the succubus isn’t as concerned with sex as its Caucasian counterparts; hags immobilize their slumbering victims by sitting on their chest and stealing their breath. Unlike a succubus assault, the Geechee breath burglar will continue its “ride”—even if the victim awakens.

According to my grandmother, there are only three ways to prevent the Boo Hag from riding you:

1. Don’t fall asleep.

2. Someone else in the room has to be awake.

3. Get the Holy Ghost.

The Boo Hag is part of a cultural tradition that explains something real. The succubus was a superstitious justification for nocturnal emission. Some believe that vampires originated with porphyria, a blood disorder whose symptoms include sensitivity to sunlight, aversion to garlic and even fangs. And many associate hag ridings with a common form of sleep paralysis, a condition that is exacerbated by stress, exhaustion, anxiety and Caucasian-induced post-traumatic stress disorder (pronounced “sleigh-furry”).

Comelita, my youngest sister, was frequently visited by this Geechee boogeyman. My other sisters and I were not old enough to get saved, sanctified or filled with the Holy Ghost, so we allowed Comelita to sleep with us, promising that we’d stay awake and stave off the Boo Hag (of course, we went to sleep). After months of sharing our single beds with our wild-sleeping younger sibling, we concocted a scheme to allay Comelita’s fears of a Boo Hag haunting.

Sean and Robin woke up Comelita in the middle of the night while I threw shit around my room. “Take that!” I screamed as I threw a book at the door. “And don’t you come back, here, you old hag.”

I emerged from the room disheveled, out of breath and holding a pair of homemade nunchucks that I had made with a broomstick and a chain to find my sisters on their knees, praying like a motherfucker. I raised my hand in victory as they erupted into cheers. After that night, Comelita slept alone, and I became Michael Harriot…

The boy who beat up a Boo Hag.

I understand if you’re hesitant to put me in the pantheon of heroes like Blade, Buffy and other vampire slayers. Perhaps you’re not superstitious. Or maybe you’re just a hater like my mom. (Instead of celebrating my achievements, she asked questions about inconsequential stuff like: “What did you do to my broom, boy?”).

Thankfully, one of my colleagues was recently caught on camera showing how to defeat a Boo Hag.

In the video, Baltimore activist Davon Neverdon, also known as PFK Boom, confronts Empowerment Temple Pastor Jamal Bryant during an event organized by the family of Tyrone West, who died in 2013 when a traffic stop turned violent.

“Take your henchmen and don’t come down here no more,” says Neverdon, founder of Baltimore’s anti-violence collective 300 Gangstas, as Bryant meekly tries to avoid inheriting the earth. “You’re a fucking disgrace. A guardian angel? For who? Cause you damn sure ain’t guarding me.”

Seeming to understand that he is walking through the valley of the shadow of death, the leader of the 12,000-member megachurch walks away. While Bryant’s T-shirt asserts his status as the community’s “Guardian Angel,” Neverdon accuses Bryant of silence on police violence while “dodging and disrespecting the West family.”

I don’t mind Jamal Bryant.

I understand that opportunists who pounce on poor, oppressed people are not unique to the Black community. Just as there is a white vampire for every Black haint, there are people who exploit Caucasian culture (Pat Robertson, Fox News people who think Crash was a good movie). But here, we are only concerned with Black, and the Black succubus is easily identifiable because they usually carry a Bible and have prefixed a “reverend” to their names.

Since Charles Manuel transformed himself into the flamboyant, cape-wearing “Sweet Daddy Grace” and began bamboozling Black folks, there is a tradition of standing in line to suck the souls out of Black communities. They sneak in under the camouflage of Jesus, Allah or some other trusted deity and announce themselves as allies of “the cause” as a means of siphoning whatever that community has to offer into their pockets and bank accounts. Whether it is conch-wearing Al Sharpton discussing a cocaine deal or Eddie Long’s prosperity penis or your local activist-turned-pastor, these men have always sought nefarious ways to become the de facto “leaders” of Black people so they could line their pockets with sweat and gold of the communities they lead. They prey on our dreams because they know we are asleep.

Then they fuck us.

Which brings us to Jamal Bryant and PFK Boom.

I should disclose that I have “met” both these men, which illustrates the chasm between their approaches.

While covering the Baltimore uprisings, the first place I visited was City Hall, where news networks had draped the town square in cameras and lighting fixtures. I was talking with two young men holding protest signs when they spotted Jamal Bryant. As someone who is not very religious (read “not religious at all”), I must admit that I had no idea who he was, but when the two young men—Baltimore residents and victims of police brutality themselves—tried to meet him, he shunned them for the television cameras.

Later that same night, another Baltimore resident, who had no desire to be recorded for an interview, invited me to another spot where the “real niggas” in Baltimore were meeting for the low bribe of a Black and Mild.

You don’t really “meet” Boom as much as you listen to him, but he has the one thing all real leaders, preachers and charlatans all share–charisma. He also has one of the things that the fave reverends and demons never have: He walks the walk.

It would be easy for me to paint PFK Boom as a neighborhood savior who was fighting for Baltimore’s overlooked constituents for years. I could point to this YouTube video of him at a city public safety meeting, warning of the Freddie Gray incident a year before it happened. I could lead you toward articles about him feeding the hungry or talking to the media about the plight of the poor in Baltimore. I could paint him as the voice of the people of Baltimore

Similarly, it would take less for me to demonize Jamal Bryant. All you’d have to do is read this article about how Bryant, a publicist and a police officer scripted a “unity march” complete with him clad in a dashiki surrounded by political campaign shirts. Or maybe you could watch the sermons he delivered to his mostly female congregation, entitled “These Hoes Ain’t Loyal.” I could bolster my argument with evidence from the child the pastor reportedly fathered out of wedlock while trying to quiet the mother and calm the controversy with the age-old aphorism long-used by con artists and succubi—“God ain’t through with me yet.”

But you can just read an open letter from one of Bryant’s supporters, Cherese Jackson:

In 2008, as you endured a public divorce amid allegations that you had fathered a child with a member of your congregation while yet married, many stood with you. Not just because you were young, charming and charismatic, but because they believed you understood the weight of your actions and were actively seeking deliverance… Not just to be a good pastor, but a better man.

However, amid the controversy, you stood behind the “sacred” pulpit as arrogant as ever and preached, “I’m the Man!” Using the story of Nathan as he confronted David about Bathsheba, you seemed to justify that you are “still the man.” …

This would have been the perfect opportunity to acknowledge a remorseful heart, even if you had already confessed to God, you owed it to the people you had been entrusted to lead.

It’s easy to frame the confrontation between Boom and Bryant as a hero trying to kill a vampire preying on his little sisters and brothers.

There are three problems with this irrational narrative.

1. They represent something real: These men exist because of real issues that affect our communities. The Black church has historically been a headquarters for political, economic and spiritual community-building. Consequently, many of the leaders of Black liberation movements emerged from the Black church. See Nat Turner. See Malcolm X. See Martin Luther King Jr. See Jesse Jackson. And because these religious leaders were also good men, we have a tendency to endow the spiritual charlatans with the same respect and admiration that we once gave to the true servants of the cause.

2. They are men: Like all human beings, Black leaders have flaws. Convincing people to follow you, or believing that you can slay an invisible demon like racism, requires a certain amount of confidence, self-importance and egotism. The line between a charismatic leader and a fraudulent narcissist isn’t just imperceptibly thin; sometimes, it doesn’t even exist. Frederick Douglass was a dedicated abolitionist, and he left the woman who helped free him to marry a white woman. Demanding that one’s leaders be perfect is as futile as kung fu-kicking a Gullah Geechee ghost.

3. White people: Being demonized, vilified and hated by white people comes with the role of Black leadership. Often, it is hard to discern if these attacks are genuine or if they are part of the historical attacks that all Black leaders endure. More importantly, most of these negro representatives are crowned as “Black leaders” because they are the only ones Black people know.

Think about this:

C.T. Vivian is still alive. So is Andrew Young. And Karen Bass was an actual Black Panther. Cleveland Sellers is a certified civil rights hero. So is John Lewis. John Conyers fought for democracy in the Korean War and in Selma. So how did Al Sharpton become what MSNBC calls “this generation’s most prominent civil rights leader?”

If George H.W. Bush can frame an actual crack dealer, can we blame Sharpton for getting caught up in an FBI cocaine sting? Did the FBI agree to leak a tape of a paid informant to smear a leader we didn’t even choose?

Then again, Jimmy Swaggart still led the evangelical Christian movement after a prostitute revealed her relationship with him. Being a slave rapist doesn’t invalidate Thomas Jefferson’s status as the architect of American democracy, so why does having a side chick invalidate Jamal Bryant’s work? Did anyone really think the dude in the tilted baseball cap was the next MLK?

Why do we require our hoes to be loyal?

Maybe Jamal Bryant isn’t an evil opportunist or a Black leader. Maybe he is simply a flawed but charismatic preacher who wants to help his community and bring people to God. Or perhaps he is also a narcissist who fell down like every other human being. It’s possible that he is just a man.

It’s also possible that PFK isn’t a street savior superhero building a retaining wall between Baltimore’s “hood” and those who seek to exploit it. Maybe he isn’t a thug. Maybe he is a man who is tired of his community receiving the worst end of America’s social, political and economic stick.

But what happened here, on the video above, should serve as inspiration for those who have always wanted to tell the men who swoop in on every Black tragedy to make a buck, a career or a name for themselves that they should return to the money-grubbing evil from whence they came. It should serve as a warning to the charlatan, skinny-tie-wearing, charismatic sweet-talkers that the people who burned down CVS and threw Molotov cocktails in the face of Ferguson tanks aren’t the same kumbaya motherfuckers that held hands and sang freedom songs. When Hillary Clinton, corporations and moderate white people prop up leaders just to gain the trust of “the Black community,” there are some of us who want to scream, “We don’t trust that nigga, either!” But finally, PFK Boom said it for all of us.

Perhaps this is a lesson on the importance of staying woke.

If we didn’t fall asleep, these so-called leaders couldn’t sneak into our communities to screw us. Regardless of how you feel about Bryant, Boom or Black leaders in general, if a few harsh words can make a grown man turn around and retreat when he is supposed to be fighting for his people, he probably wasn’t really fighting at all.

This is why it’s important to interrogate our so-called leaders. If they’re operating in good faith, they won’t mind being questioned. And if they don’t like being challenged, then fuck them…

Tell them PFK Boom and I said it…

Boo Hags know how we do.