- Columbus, OH
September 1998
Correspondence from Umi's employer, the New York City Board of Education, and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation.
Notes: Umi had told me that she had once gotten into an argument with another Black woman in college that got heated, perhaps almost physical. After she and the other woman had parted ways, the other woman called the police, according to Umi, to exact some kind of vengeance. The way Umi told it, the police found the claims unfounded and so nothing real came of it. So why this inquiry from the NYC Board of Education 26 years later? Umi was licensed to teach in New York City in 1975, so why is the Board of Ed looking into something from 1972? I am not sure. What I am sure of is, as a Black person in the carceral United States, something that happened when she was 22 could have easily had some real consequences for her at 48. Which, in a related way, though my mother did not have a tragic outcome, reminded me of the police murder of Ma'Khia Bryant.