What's in a Name?

Conversations tend to get pretty weird when you’re on line with a friend. Last Saturday night, I waited two hours for a really cool secret show I’m gonna not spoil for you. This is for my safety and yours. And because I like keeping secrets. Anyhow, I stood on line, chatting as I watched various NY Comic Con folks leave Hammerstein Ballroom in various states of nerd dress. At one point, and I don’t remember how we got to the topic, my friend turned to me and asked, “how do you feel about your name?” I think I blinked, kind of like funny Twitter meme guy, and it could have been because I had counted four Superman cosplayers in ten minutes, but I replied with a question: “Like, first name or last?” Which I think is fair to ask given my first name is pretty old. But he meant last, and in the context of Evans not being some West African surname. I didn’t mind the question, but it knocked me a bit off-kilter.

I don’t think about my last name very often. I sometimes consider its weight, chuckle at the concept of being distantly related to Chris Evans. I’ve thought about what it means, spent quality time Googling it. In case you didn’t know, Evans is a ‘son’ kind of name, descending from Evan which is the Welsh version of John which means “the Lord is gracious.” I think it’s fair enough to guess that, at least on my dad’s side, the 16% British descent comes from Wales.  But how do I feel about it? A loaded question to ask before a comedy special--but oddly enough one that was fitting given the content of the show which, again, I won’t discuss.

When my sister gave her DNA to 23andMe last summer, I think she did so to learn about ancestry in a quantitative way. Beforehand, we had only heard about where our great-great grandparents could be from by word of mouth. We were black, yes, but we had a really light-skinned great-grandfather, but it wasn’t because he was half-white, he was Native American. Supposedly. No tribe given, but probably Cherokee like every other Black person in the United States. I took this word so seriously that, during Pioneer Day in elementary school, my 12 year-old radical ass refused to dress up as any black figure in the early 1800s because I didn’t want to be a slave. I somehow persuaded my mom to drive to Jo-Ann Fabrics, buy fuzzy fur-like yards of cloth, cut them into a poncho-dress-thing and ta-da--I was a cornrowed Sacajawea. I didn’t really claim Pocahontas because, save for “Colors of the Wind,” her Disney movie was trash. When the DNA test came back, it turned out my sister, and therefore I, was significantly less indigenous than believed. My Southeast Asian ancestry, which in and of itself was a shock, was equal to the American indigenous present, which put together added to 1%.

It turned out we were something like 79% West African and 20% European, which isn’t surprising given we’re black people in the United States of America. Both my maternal and paternal grandparents were a part of the second Great Migration-- emigrating from Alabama and Florida to Pennsylvania and New York, respectively. There’s a sepia photo of my maternal great-grandparents that breaks my heart a little every time I see it. My great-grandfather and great-grandmother, obviously old despite the terrible photo quality, stand shoulder to shoulder, smiling on a dirt road. If there are clouds in the sky, they’ve faded with the age of the photograph.  Wind blows Grandma Coleman’s apron. Her face reminds me of my mother, probably because of the cheekbones. I don’t have them, but my little brother does. Grandpa Coleman stands tall, shaded by a hat I’d wear if I could find it. Both their hands are big, held forward as offerings. I like to believe they look proud. Of what, I'll never know. I think my feelings about this picture match the ones I have about my name.

My maternal great-grandparents, the Colemans

I can’t quite place them. Blood tests are cool. Photos are cool. But, they’re also irrefutable pieces of evidence that carry violence and struggle and joy and pride and shame. And I can’t change any of them. Of the 79% West African blood that flows through my body, most of that is Congolese and Cameroonian, so I want to go to both those countries soon. I also want to spend time in Wales next semester. I don’t know how the experience of going to the motherland and visiting Wales, which I guess in this line of thinking is the fatherland, will differ. I think the same feelings will be felt, that same pride and shame, but probably in different degrees with different nuances. I imagine a lot of black folks grapple with holding the blood of both the enslaved and slaver in their spirits. It’s not particularly fun to ponder, but a necessary fact to accept.

The two Evans from whom I get my name, Grandpa William Evans and my dad, Reg. Pre-Mustache.

       One of my favorite songs from “To Pimp A Butterfly,” Kendrick Lamar’s masterpiece, an album robbed by the country-turned-pop singer Kanye West made famous, is “Complexion (A Zulu Love).” The most crushing lyrics of the song, which is a tragic commentary on colorism, is “brown skinned but your blue eyes tell me your mama can’t run.” The line sort of shakes me every time I listen to it. I wonder how my sister, in her beautiful, golden-skinned, hazel-eyed body feels. As much as we are people, we are deconstructed as politicized bodies for white supremacists to disregard or well-meaning college students to learn about in cultural classes. In one such class, I read an excerpt of WEB DuBois’ “Black Reconstruction,” in which he writes that Black people “so mingled their blood with white and red America that today less than 25% of the Negro Americans are of unmixed African descent”  and I wonder how that statistic has changed from 1935 to 2017. Regardless, I choose to lean into my fullness, my 100% humanity and all the complexity that comes with the pain and triumph. I am my ancestor’s wildest dreams, sure. And some of their greatest fears. At least, 20% worth. Either way, I’m here. To some, my people got the lucky end of a sinister global event, and to others, to me. . . “the Lord is gracious,” and I choose to carry that meaning of my name, too.