Onaje Woodbine’s philosophical pur- suits took him from the basketball courts of Roxbury, Mass., to Yale, BU, and Nigeria.

34 BOSTONIA Winter–Spring 2017

28-51 Bostonia_WS17.indd 34 2/1/17 2:20 PM Healing

and

Hoops

Of

Finding life’s meaning on the basketball court

By Michael S. Goldberg Photographs by Cydney Scott

35 \ Winter–Spring 2017 | Bostonia /

28-51 Bostonia_WS17.indd 35 2/1/17 2:20 PM Onaje X. O. Woodbine was a starting guard on the for him to fi nd friends through basket- When Woodbine gazes Bulldogs varsity basketball squad until ball as he grew up in a single-parent at the main bas- he quit the team, as he announced in a home. How he suff ered when a coach column in the Yale Daily News, to focus and father fi gure died when he was 12. ketball court at Malcolm X on his study of philosophy. At BU, he Why he had to project strength through Park in Roxbury, Mass., earned a Master of Theological Studies his identity as an athlete. And why it he sees more than a 94-by- and concentrated in religion and psy- was imperative for him to move beyond 50-foot cement game sur- chology for his doctorate. that identity. Sitting on a courtside bench at These things were “unconscious for face. To Woodbine, who Malcolm X Park, Woodbine discusses much of my life,” Woodbine says. “It spent countless hours his ethnographic research on courts was a feeling or intuition—something I shooting hoops on this like this one in support of his doctoral knew in my bones from just living in it and other nearby courts, thesis, and later his adaptation of that and breathing this city and its culture. research for his book, Black Gods of But the process of stepping outside of it is a sacred space. the Asphalt: Religion, Hip-Hop, and it, of viewing it as an observer, allowed It was here that his friend Shorty, Street Basketball (Columbia Univer- me a kind of transcendence—a way to a local star of the Boston street bas- sity Press, 2016), named by the Boston talk about it. It gave me language to say ketball scene, defi ed defenders—and Globe as one of the Best Books of 2016. what I had already known. And that’s gravity—on his way to the hoop, play- He spent four years interviewing young what I had hoped to do for the young ing, says Woodbine, like his late grand- African American men about their men, to give them a perspective on mother’s memory depended on it. On experiences playing in street basketball themselves, to recognize that they were courts like this, his teammate Jason turned his suff ering—a drug-addicted “If God is good, why is this happening to me? Who am I and mother, an absent father, and a cousin who was stabbed in the street—into what is my purpose? I bring those questions to this space.” elegant, dizzying drives to the basket, winning a few moments of relief. tournaments and documenting what exploring these really central human “This is an amazing space, a mecca he describes as their lived religion. The questions that most outsiders really of street basketball,” says Woodbine court, he says, is where they confront don’t recognize are happening in these (STH’04, GRS’14), who teaches philoso- central human questions. kinds of spaces, amongst these young, phy and religion at Phillips Academy “These are questions like, what hap- poor African American men.” Andover. “There are a lot of memories pens when you die? What do we owe on this court that are here right now. to the dead, if anything? Why is there Self-Discovery, on and off the Court I remember seeing Shorty play for his evil?” Woodbine says. “That’s a huge Early in his fi rst basketball season at grandmother’s spirit here. And I re- question, you know. The questions, if Yale, Woodbine began to think that member seeing the faces of people God is good, why is this happening to something was missing. Practices were who passed away. You know, so much me? Who am I and what is my purpose? run like a corporate training session. has happened here over the years. Those are the kinds of questions that He felt more like an employee than a And it still holds that awe, that sacred the game responds to. It’s like, I bring student-athlete. In Black Gods of the sense for me.” that question to this space. And what Asphalt, he recounts a scrimmage: The 36-year-old Woodbine is unique- happens in this space is a response to I pushed the ball down the right sideline on ly qualifi ed to fi nd meaning in this that question.” a fast break. A white, muscular, six-foot- mecca. It was the basketball courts at For readers, Woodbine becomes a six senior captain charged from the left the Roxbury Boys & Girls Club that guide to the lives of African Ameri- sideline to block my shot at the rim. He was provided his childhood refuge from cans in the inner city and the tragedy running fast. I knew I had him beat. We frightening confrontations with gang of their isolation from mainstream reached the paint simultaneously. I jumped off my left leg and held the ball seductively members on the street. And as a teen- America. He illuminates the challen- in midair above my head. He took the bait ager, it was his basketball prowess that ges of poverty, racism, and crime and swung for the basketball at the same conferred the status that kept gangs at that face young people of color and time that I tucked it into my abdomen, a safe distance. explores basketball’s role as a com- switched the ball into my left hand, and His athletic gifts brought him munal touchstone. fl oated to the other side of the basket. Our recognition at Newton South High He tells us why so many young men captain began fl ailing like a bird, landing School, where he was bused from the who adopt a tough street persona or be- awkwardly on the baseline under the hoop. I fl ipped the ball off the glass without look- city as part of the METCO program, the come a victim reject the church in favor ing at the rim—swish. I was smiling before country’s longest continuously running of the basketball court as the shared my feet touched the ground. I expected voluntary school desegregation pro- space to express feelings of anger and guys on my team to jubilate as I ran down gram. That recognition continued at sadness, friendship and aff ection. the court on defense, but they were silent. the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, For Woodbine, writing the book “How did they play the game without emo- a college prep boarding school, where brought structure and meaning to his tion?” I thought. he earned a scholarship to Yale. own experiences: how important it was Woodbine made the starting fi ve his 36 \ Winter–Spring 2017 | Bostonia /

28-51 Bostonia_WS17.indd 36 2/1/17 2:37 PM fi rst year, and was voted a second-team In spring 2000, after his sopho- Alumni Magazine in fall 2000, it was Ivy League All-Star his second. Still, more season, Woodbine published a read by Robert Neville, then dean of he felt isolated on the court, “as if I column in the Yale Daily News explain- the BU School of Theology. Neville was dancing to music that no one else ing his thoughts: was so impressed with Woodbine’s could hear.” conviction that he drove to Yale and If my goals are to become the person I am meant to be and to be happy, then the deci- invited him to apply to graduate school As a teenager, Woodbine had sion not to play basketball is easy. When I at Boston University. dreams of making it to look two years down the road, do I want to the NBA, but at Yale, he say I played basketball for Yale but did not An Opportunity to Remember and realized this was not his get to meet with my teachers, did not get to Honor the Dead read all of my class materials, did not go to trajectory. He was uncomfortable being When Woodbine was 12, his basketball master’s teas, or did not have the opportu- valued for his physical gifts in a place nity to wake up on a Saturday morning and coach and beloved mentor was killed in that was supposed to be dedicated to talk with my roommates? To the contrary, a car crash. Manny Wilson was a Boston the life of the mind. And he knew that I want to look at my fellow classmates on Housing Authority police offi cer and a he was missing out on more important graduation day and say, “I have become the father fi gure to young Onaje, whose real opportunities. At the same time, he felt person I was meant to be.” father was out of the picture for much the presence of those he had known Woodbine wrote that it was clear of his youth. A photo from the Boston growing up and all the places they, “that I will not help the most people Herald story about Wilson, who died unlike him, could not go. And he by putting the ball in the basket.” on the job, shows a sad Onaje sitting needed to speak up. Instead, he chose a diff erent course: on a courtside bench at the Roxbury “I felt like a medium for the voices of “I feel called to study philosophy Boys & Girls Club, where Manny had the young men who went through what and religion, to expose the contradic- been his coach. I went through in the streets, who died tions that people of African descent “When Manny died, we had a game prematurely, who were subject to all of face in America every day, to give my for him,” he says. “We had a whole tour- the violence,” he says. “And I learned life to humanity.” nament league for him. And the kind of through the game to surrender to that It was a clarion statement. After the emotion that was expressed, and all voice, that still small voice in me. It column announcing his resignation of those things—the catharsis—it became a part of me.” from the team was reprinted in Yale seems so normal to me, so natural,

Woodbine believes he can help more young African Americans fi nd meaning in unex- pected places, like a basketball court.

Winter–Spring 2017 BOSTONIA 37

28-51 Bostonia_WS17_r1.indd 37 2/7/17 10:13 AM because it was just what everyone did. of time together, meeting up with men like Shorty and Jason and others is It was in the culture, it was in the air, they had not seen in 10 or 15 years. embodied in street basketball tourna- and I hadn’t thought about it as any- All of them were interested in talking ments. “And,” he says, “folks have an thing special.” to Woodbine, Paulding says, and even opportunity to remember, not just those who didn’t know him were im- themselves, but they remember and BU, Woodbine says, he pressed with his sensitivity when honor the dead.” At acquired the knowledge he interviewed them. and tools to defi ne such “They had a lot of love for him,” From the Page to the Stage and Beyond meaningful experiences. Paulding says. “Onaje showed a lot At the end of Black Gods of the Asphalt, His pursuit of an academic grounding of respect and compassion and the Woodbine argues that while the rituals in religion and philosophy took him to people threw that right back at him.” of street basketball provide a venue for Nigeria, where he studied the Yoruba Sit for an hour with Woodbine Boston’s young black men “to reimag- tradition and met his wife, Folasade. and that becomes easy to believe. ine the problems of inner-city life,” He wanted to do ethnographic re- He is gracious, a welcome presence, there is a key piece missing: communi- search, studying people playing street and his basketball skills helped bridge ty elders who could validate the players’ basketball in Boston, but he knew that many cultural divides. But there was experiences and emotions. a traditional social science approach, another reason for the men to partici- “It’s almost as if young people don’t with no experience from the street, pate in his research. Citing the work know the beauty inside them until it’s would fail to reveal a full picture. of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, mirrored by somebody of value that “If academics are not careful, they Woodbine observes in his book, “For they hold dear,” he says. “Then they can mistake language for experience,” many of the black athletes, our inter- get to see it in themselves for the fi rst he says. “They mistake the model that view was the fi rst time someone had time. So that’s what I see the role of the they arrive at for the thing itself. And expressed genuine interest in their elders having out here: providing a mir- what academics forget is that they’re stories. Momentarily freed from the ror, a witness.” writing from a position of leisure, burden of the streets, they shared To address this, Woodbine has de- which gives them a tendency to impose experiences and feelings that may signed a ceremony for the basketball a static version of what they see. What have remain silenced.” court with choreographed movements that often does is strip the people Walter E. Fluker, the Martin Luther that communicate rites of passage, they’re studying of their freedom, their King, Jr., Professor of Ethical Leader- “where you turn the game into a philo- agency, their fl uidity, their humanity. ship at STH, says his former teach- sophical exploration of the self and so- So on the one hand, the academy gave me tools to recognize this, to step back He envisions a fi lm adaptation of Black Gods, and is from it. But I had to be careful to avoid the risk of mistaking those tools for the consulting with his half brother, actor Bokeem Woodbine. experience itself.” Woodbine also needed access to ing fellow uses academic knowledge ciety, almost like a moving meditation,” the street basketball players, many and spirituality to explore issues he says. The ceremony, says Woodbine, of whom live and play in areas where that go deep into the African Ameri- “takes each African American through gang violence remains a fact of life and can experience. the journey of his people, from the young people are wary of outsiders. So “These young men are part of initial freedom of Africa, through the after fi ve-plus years away from the Bos- a larger group, which bears the bur- trauma of the Americas, and a return ton neighborhoods where den of a traumatized existence,” says to an inner sense of wholeness and k ONLINE: he grew up, Woodbine Fluker (GRS’88). “To live in poverty— freedom. It is the dramatization of the See an needed to fi nd a guide sometimes unspeakable poverty— African American search for identity interactive and protector. means that one is always looking for for the purpose of reimagining a more rendering Roxbury resident diff erent ways to adapt, to sustain, just future.” of Onaje Russell Paulding, a and hopefully, affi rm some sense of The work is a collaboration with Woodbine’s friend of Woodbine’s one’s humanity. some of the men he met in his research “Hoops Rites since they were teen- “The great contribution that Onaje and with his father, Robert Woodbine. of Passage” agers, was just the per- makes is that while he’s referring to He reconnected with him when he was at bu.edu/ son. Paulding, who had religion, he is really helping us to see 15 and from him learned about tai chi bostonia. earned the respect of ways in which human beings struggle to and meditation. gangs across the city as a affi rm their humanity. And so reli- Woodbine’s ceremony draws on youth who used his fi sts and as an adult gion is a resource in the struggle. It’s a Yoruba orisha traditions, in which the who was devoted to improving the lives religious experience that he’s pointing ground is the ultimate source of human of young men on the courts, accompa- to—not an institutionalized religion, power, and tai chi movements. He is nied Woodbine to basketball tourna- but the very experience—the deep, also incorporating lessons he learned ments and arranged interviews with spiritual healing that takes place out of from his mother, Robin Offl ey, who is men from their teens to their 30s. this ritualized grief.” the principal ballerina and professional Paulding and Woodbine spent a lot Fluker says the grief of young men dance choreographer at “A” Major 38 \ Winter–Spring 2017 | Bostonia /

28-51 Bostonia_WS17_r1.indd 38 2/7/17 10:16 AM The Dunk and the

Signifying Monkey

WE HAD come a long way together as we reached the and vibration forced me to abandon myself in the moment. doorway to the inner sanctuary of the tournament. I could Sticks, Jason, and I made our way to the warm-up bench. feel the intensity rise in the air. Close to a thousand people C. J. had just arrived. We put our bags down and stepped were in and around the court. “Yo, what’s up Onaje? onto the court in full uniform. The crowd began to whisper: You ballin’ today?” one brother asked at the gateway. “Who are these guys? What team is this?” The Community “Yeah, I’m going to be out there today,” I responded with Awareness Tournament was the biggest basketball stage in butterfl ies in my stomach. “Onaje was one of the best the city, and we were a surprise entry. It didn’t matter. Our ballplayers in Boston,” he said as he turned to an older guy bodies were on fi re from the music, and we shot warm- leaning against a metal railing next to the court. “You don’t up baskets like the best players in the world. Where was have to tell me that. Look at him. His aura precedes him,” the energy coming from? I didn’t know. Was it the crowd? the old man responded with a smile. The beat? Corey’s embrace? Marvin’s mother? Carrying To make it to the inner court, we had to push through Marvin, Eric, and Lundy on our backs and in our hearts? standing rows of people, positioning themselves around The ball? The beat? The beat. sidelines, spilling onto the basketball fl oor. The scene The next forty minutes were a blur. Sticks, a six-foot- of so many bodies rubbing together staring at the court six-inch-tall forward, stepped to half-court to perform was overwhelming. The smell of sweat hung in the air; an the jump ball against a six-foot-ten giant. When the ball intense beat vibrating from speakers around the court accidentally tipped in my direction, a wiry, strong, dark- passed through our bodies, shaking our innards. My fl esh skinned kid with long braided hair and I began wrestling suddenly became engulfed in an ocean of smell and sound for it. We were so close to each other that I could feel his and vibration that made it feel impossible to think. As we thoughts. Something inside me responded. Once the ball walked toward the bench, my head kept nodding to the cooperated with me, I raced down the court toward the beat. I noticed one player dancing on the court. He took basket, eyes on the rim. A defender stood before me at a few dribbles, let the ball bounce on its own, gyrated his the free-throw line, crouched in a defensive stance. I torso, waist, then lower legs. When he was done, the ball stopped abruptly at the three-point line. The jump shot fell back into his right hand as if it had been waiting for him felt lovely leaving my hands. As the ball fl oated across the to fi nish. It was magical. No one could escape the medicine sky, I bent my wrist and extended my fi ngers toward the of the music as it operated on us from the inside out. I goal. Clang! The shot ricocheted hard off the back of the felt a deep primal connection to everyone around me, all rim—too much adrenaline.

bouncing to the same rhythm. This was belonging. This was Excerpted from Chapter 6, “The Dunk and the Signifying Monkey,” community. This was home. The swirl of smell and sound of Black Gods of the Asphalt (Columbia University Press, 2016)

Dance Company, one of the oldest es was at the Oprah Winfrey Leadership more young African Americans fi nd African American dance companies Academy for Girls there. humanity, religion, and meaning in Boston. The play is an example of Woodbine’s in unexpected places like a basket- drive to bring his work to audiences ball court. also has three related through collaborations, something he “People who lack jobs, who lack He projects. He has begun has been doing since he was in grad meaning in a lot of ways, who don’t get researching a follow-up school. With Folasade, who like him an opportunity for self-expression, and book focusing on a is an initiated Yoruba orisha shaman, for people to provide witness—I think woman who is a spiritual healer in he developed an iPhone app to dem- they would really savor the opportu- Boston. He envisions a fi lm adaptation onstrate how a priest uses a divination nity,” he says. “There is immense love of Black Gods and is consulting with his chain to recite diff erent verses from out here—all of my friends, all of the half brother, actor Bokeem Woodbine, the religion. He also collaborated with people I know in the city, are through who most recently appeared in the TV the company Anna Myer and Dancers this game. And it’s like a brotherhood series Fargo. to create In the Paint, a mixed-genre or sisterhood; literally one phone call, And at Andover, Woodbine worked performance based on street basketball and it’s not even a question. They show with theater and dance colleagues to stories, which premiered in Harlem up. We show up with each other because adapt Black Gods for the stage. His stu- in 2014. you can’t put a price on what we’ve dents performed in the show last May Sitting at Malcolm X Park—neutral shared together out here. You can’t at the school and during a summer trip ground in Boston’s gang turf battles— measure it, you can’t name it. It’s pre- to South Africa; one of the performanc- Woodbine says he believes he can help cious. It’s just precious.” 39 \ Winter–Spring 2017 | Bostonia /

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