Without warning, the DJ slaps on some old-school Bob Marley and the club starts to wake up.
"Natty dread it in-a (Zimbabwe)/Set it up in a (Zimbabwe)/Mash it up-a in-a (Zimbabwe)/Africans a-liberate (Zimbabwe)…"
Marley's unmistakable wail bounces off the walls of WilLee's Blues Club. A group of smartly dressed young black men post up against the far wall, nodding their heads to the track, their mouths lip-synching along with Marley's politically charged lyrics.
Another young black man with a Kangol hat tilted to the side strides up to the DJ and gives him a long, extended hug-which serves as both a greeting and implicit approval for having the courage to take the crowd back in time with some Marley. Other patrons, most of them young and black, finish sucking down their beers and wander over to the small dance floor.
This could be New York or Atlanta or Chicago.
In fact, the only sign that this is Santa Fe is the elderly white woman in a long, flowery dress, bleary eyed from liquor or something stronger, flailing her arms in the middle of the dance floor. She goes unnoticed, flanked on all sides by young black people. For one night, at least, the script has been flipped.
Usually, blacks in Santa Fe are outnumbered, comprising less than 1 percent of the total population, compared with 2.4 percent statewide and nearly 13 percent throughout the country. And though the community is growing-according to the local chapter of the NAACP-the black experience in Santa Fe and New Mexico is complex, fraught with the intricacies of being a minority in a state of minorities.
Rep. Sheryl Williams Stapleton, a senior Democratic politician from Albuquerque, is one of only two black legislators at the Roundhouse. Stapleton, who was born in the Virgin Islands and grew up in New York City, says black people in New Mexico are sometimes forgotten, left out of the state's proud, unofficial tricultural mantra.
Stapleton says this is sometimes evident in the Legislature itself, where she remembers a time during the late 1990s when Republicans would walk off the House floor rather than vote for legislation she introduced to create a state Office of African American Affairs (the Office finally won legislative approval in 1999).
"Not only do I represent my district, but I have black people calling me with their concerns from Clovis, from Hobbs, from Las Cruces, from Silver City," she says. "Personally, I've always had to force myself into whatever I want to get done at the Legislature." (Events commemorating Martin Luther King, Jr., Day on Jan. 15 will take place at the Roundhouse.)
More than politics, though, it's the social isolation that many black people in Santa Fe, and in the northern reaches of the state, become accustomed to. Unlike most cities with a black population, Santa Fe has no definitive neighborhood or business community that caters to the city's African-Americans.
State Treasurer James Lewis, the only statewide-elected African-American in New Mexico's history, tells of people calling him to find out whether there were any African-American functions or celebrations in Albuquerque to attend.
"It's the little things you lack-where to get a haircut, the products, the social environment, the amenities," Lewis, who attended a segregated elementary school in Roswell during the 1950s, says. (The Supreme Court declared public school segregation illegal in 1954, but de facto segregation continued throughout the country for some time, including in New Mexico.)
Even so, longtime black residents of Santa Fe and people who have worked here, such as Lewis and Stapleton, are just as quick to point out the definitive positive aspects to their lives in New Mexico: the learned ability to move between worlds and the exposure to a different sort of diversity.
Marvin Lee Paulk
Marvin Lee Paulk could never shoot a lay-up worth a damn. Or make a jump shot, for that matter.
In fact, Paulk had to be one of the worst athletes in Valdosta, the small, rural Georgia town where he was raised. Valdosta was big on sports, too; it was the kind of place where young black men were expected to excel in basketball or football, or both. But not Paulk. Not without hand-eye coordination, at least. And Paulk didn't have it. Not 30 years ago. Not now.
So it was strange-funny even-when Paulk's fellow police officers in Santa Fe pleaded with him to join the department's basketball team for the annual charity game against the guys from the city fire department.
"They hadn't ever seen me play basketball, and I can't play a lick." Paulk chuckles. "We agreed that if I went out on the court that it might demoralize the other team, that they might get intimidated and not play so well."
Other black cops working on an overwhelmingly Hispanic and white force-of 134 officers, there are only three African-Americans-might have taken offense. Paulk just laughs. “That’s one of those stereotypes I don’t think is so bad,” he says.
Perhaps it's because Paulk, 39, has lived most of his adult life in New Mexico that he has become so comfortable here, even after growing up in a part of Georgia that was primarily black.
Paulk joined the military after high school, beginning a tour of duty that eventually took him to Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo. After getting out of the reserves and doing a brief stint as a corrections officer in Santa Fe, Paulk got a job working as a tribal police officer in Pojoaque Pueblo and then in San Juan Pueblo. At both departments, he was the sole black cop, serving a close-knit, almost completely Native American population.
"I would honestly have to say that I never had any problems. The people understood that I was there to help them, not hurt them. I even got an award from the governor of San Juan for working so well with the local populace," Paulk, who holds a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from the University of Phoenix and is working toward an MBA from Highlands University, says.
Paulk says he has experienced the same level of acceptance in Santa Fe, where he joined the police department in 2000, working his first four years as a patrolman and the last two as the agency's chief recruiter.
"I can honestly say that I haven't had any problems. I'm kind of a decent size fella, so I think individuals think twice before deciding to take me on," Paulk, who stands 5 feet 9 inches and weighs 200-plus pounds, says. "Maybe it's because they see a big black guy coming to ask them questions. But I think it's more because of my size than my race."
Paulk's demeanor changes when discussing the subject of police brutality against unarmed African-Americans, like Rodney King in Los Angeles, or Sean Bell, gunned down by police on a Queens street the morning of his wedding last November.
"As an African-American police officer, you hear stories like this and you think that something has to seriously be wrong," he remarks. "For the most part, I believe it's the individual, not the agency. But I also recognize that some police agencies have a certain culture, a certain reputation, that isn't kind to minorities and blacks."
Paulk pauses, thinking through a topic that clearly troubles him.
"You know, as a regular citizen, if my son went to a place like Los Angeles, I think I'd be a little afraid."
For now, at least, Paulk has no need to worry. He and his family-Paulk is married to a native New Mexican and has five children-have made a life for themselves here. They live in Española, a world away from the ugly, often heartwrenching difficulties black cops face in the big city.
"One thing I learned from the military when we went overseas was that if you take the time to learn the language, to study the culture, to interact with the people, you will be accepted and respected," he says. "I think the same is true in New Mexico."
Tia Bland
Tia Bland knows that look from black tourists.
The bewildered, shell-shocked gaze-Bland notices it time and time again when she walks through downtown Santa Fe.
"When they see me, it feels like they're saying, 'Oh my god! I just want to hug you!'" she says. "I tell them: 'There may only be five of us! But we're here!'"
Bland is used to such encounters. Just as she's used to the stares when she strolls through Santa Fe Place, just a few miles from where she works as the spokeswoman for the New Mexico Corrections Department.
“I can walk through the entire mall, back and forth, and not see an entire person that looks like me. We stick out like a sore thumb in Santa Fe,” Bland says. “Not that I’m unaccustomed to that. It’s been my experience since grade school. At a very young age, you learn to adapt to your environment. It pays dividends later on in life.”
Bland's family is from Texas, but she grew up in Roswell and Carlsbad-two places with higher African-American populations than Santa Fe. But there are also fewer Hispanics in the southeastern part of the state and a more conservative bent to the culture.
"I wouldn't say I experienced overt racism that much, but there was a sense that behind my back, people would sometimes undermine me because of their own racist convictions," she says.
To Bland, northern New Mexico is decidedly different, more progressive than where she was raised. But she's also cognizant that the lack of black people can be a struggle for African-Americans from larger cities who aren't accustomed to it. Not so, for her.
"I think this is a good place in that it teaches you to work with others, to appreciate other cultures and to assimilate better. That's been my experience," she says.
But Bland's love for New Mexico is not without its frustrations.
"I think being in a state where there are other minorities raises the cultural sensitivity level, but I also think that in New Mexico, people tend to minimize and marginalize the African-American experience," she says. "You hear key political figures every once in a while referring to New Mexico as a tricultural state. You know, Hispanic, Native and Anglo. And that's hurtful. We're here, too; we contribute and we want validation."
Bland is well versed in the sociopolitical dynamics of the state. She worked as a television reporter for KOBTV in Albuquerque, where she lives, and taught employability skills to women receiving government benefits. Four years ago, Bland took the job with Corrections, and she is the only African-American in the upper echelons of the Department. That wasn't so difficult to get used to. Bland had been on that road virtually her entire life. What was unexpectedly hard were the prisons themselves.
As a reporter, Bland had been behind bars for stories, but suddenly she found herself the voice for a state system whose prison population is 10 percent African-American-a disturbingly disproportionate number compared to the low representation of blacks in the state.
"This happens for the same complicated reasons in New Mexico as it does in Florida, in Virginia and in New York. There is no black community that escapes this," Dr. Finnie Coleman, director of African American Studies at the University of New Mexico, says. "To be fair about it, these young men are no less criminally minded than anyone else. If you are disenfranchised and there is the antinomianism that pervades much of black youth, you're going to see these social patterns."
For Bland, Coleman's point is particularly pronounced every time she goes to work.
"Nowhere outside of the black church are African-Americans represented more than in the prisons. It's always startling to walk into a prison, and suddenly there are a lot of people that look like me," she says. "I look around when I'm in there. And I just feel sad. I feel very, very sad."
Ryan and Michael Patterson
When Ryan Patterson was in preschool, some kid called him a “nigger.”
It happened almost two decades ago, but Patterson remembers going home that day after school and causing a ruckus. When his mother asked him why he was behaving so badly, he told her: “'Cause I’m the N-word, and this is how I’m supposed to act. That’s what this kid at school told me.”
Patterson is now 20. He and his brother Michael, 28, grew up in Santa Fe with a black father and a Hispanic mother. Their life here, as biracial, bicultural young men, has been both precious and painful.
Their father wasn’t around much, and the Patterson boys were raised by their Hispanic mother, who tried to instill the merits of black culture in her sons, giving them books such as The Autobiography of Malcolm X to read, films like Sarafina! to watch and even traditional African blankets to keep them warm.
At the same time, the N-word is something the Patterson boys heard more than their fair share of growing up in Santa Fe, as two of only a handful of black kids their age that they knew.
“There were times when my close friends, people that I loved, would use the N-word as a last resort if we were fighting,” Michael says. “It was just something they’d do. I still love them.”
Ryan, a standout three-sport athlete at St. Michael's High School, remembers being taunted so badly at basketball and baseball games against West Las Vegas High School that the police had to be called, and games against that particular school were sometimes scheduled for the early afternoon so students couldn't attend.
"I played on an all-star team with one of the kids who said things about me. His mother came over and apologized to mine," he recalls.
The enormous pressure of being young black men in an overwhelmingly nonblack environment is difficult to comprehend. Being biracial can complicate things even further. The noted New York City poet Willie Perdomo writes about the travails of growing up black and Puerto Rican in his poem “Nigger-Reecan Blues”:
"Yo soy Boricua!/Yo soy Africano! I ain't/lyin'. Pero mi pelo is kinky y curly y mi skin no es negro pero it can pass…"
It's an experience both Pattersons can relate to. Ryan recalls the first time he traveled to a black barbershop in Albuquerque and worried that the people in the shop would wonder what he was doing there because maybe he wasn't really black.
"It got a lot better after that first time," he recalls with a laugh.
There was a time when Michael attended high school in Albuquerque for a while and suddenly found himself shielding Hispanic students from the verbal jabs thrown by his black friends. “It took me a long time to figure out who I was. I always longed for black people,” he says. “But I’m proud of both sides of my family.”
Eduardo Díaz, executive director of the National Hispanic Cultural Center (NHCC), is part of a group of Latino and African-American leaders in Albuquerque who meet regularly to discuss ways in which both communities in New Mexico, particularly young people, can find more common ground. In the coming months, NHCC will be running an exhibit on Mexicans of African descent and how that relates to New Mexico historically and contemporaneously.
"There have been stereotypes between Latinos and African-Americans and divisions that are compounded by economics, education; and the recent immigration debate has done nothing but drive a wedge between the communities," Díaz says. "There's lot to be said about pro-social interactions to reduce racial tensions among these two communities. From hip-hop to reggaeton to our roots, we're connected."
Throughout their own experiences, the Patterson brothers have held tight to a fierce love for Santa Fe and an unbending gratefulness for having been raised in the fashion they were. These days, Ryan plays baseball at Lamar Junior College in Colorado. Michael works for the state Health Department.
"I don't ever see myself wandering too far from where I grew up," Michael says. "We love it here. This is our home."
Agnes Gomez Moses
“I liked the slower pace, the fiestas, Zozobra. I really didn’t think about anything else, about whether there were enough African-Americans. I just liked the people.”
Agnes Gomez Moses, 81, speaks with the slow, deliberate tenor of someone who has lived a long time and seen a whole lot. She spent most of her life in the Bay Area, in a neighborhood that gradually became primarily African-American, Hispanic and Asian. From there, the former teacher and field director for the Girl Scouts moved to San Diego. And then: New Mexico.
“I had a very good girlfriend who was Hispanic, and she used to take me to Santa Fe. That’s where she was from,” Moses says. “Fifteen years ago, my husband and I decided to buy a house here. We haven’t left.”
Not only did Moses not leave, but she threw herself into the workings of Santa Fe's tiny black community, which numbers approximately 500. Soon after arriving, Moses and her husband, who is white, joined the local chapter of the NAACP. She is now the chapter's president.
When you first hear Moses talk about the African-American experience in Santa Fe, it sounds like an easy, utopian existence, albeit an insular one. With a noticeable tinge of pride, Moses rattles off the NAACP's accomplishments, black people's accomplishments, in the City Different.
“There always seem to be African-Americans coming in and out of Santa Fe. We have the NAACP, which has 11 chapters throughout the state and does a lot of work with the people in Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Most recently, we held our annual soul food banquet. And right now, we’re getting ready for the Martin Luther King Day celebrations,” she says. “I think the African-Americans who come here to live feel comfortable. They fit in with the community and generally don’t have any problems.”
Of course there are exceptions. Moses' own son, Larry, 49, was arrested for domestic violence after a fight with his now ex-wife in Albuquerque. He was placed on probation. Shortly thereafter, he got into an argument with his probation officer. According to Moses, a judge revoked Larry's probation and sentenced him to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Albuquerque for two months.
Moses believes her son was mistreated because he is black.
"It was not fair. And it was compounded because of his race," she says. "We hired a lawyer, he thought about filing a lawsuit. We got a chance to see firsthand how people are treated when they get in trouble with the law. You're just at their mercy. It's terrible."
The Santa Fe branch of the NAACP receives letters from African-Americans who live throughout northern New Mexico. There was the man who was bailed out of jail in Albuquerque but was forced to wait a month before his release. Or the woman at Highlands University whose landlady kept using racial slurs against her and her child. The NAACP here plays a pivotal role in providing support, and sometimes legal assistance, when such situations arise. With 113 members, the vast majority of them non-African-American, it is the largest chapter in the state.
"Many African-Americans in New Mexico have been discriminated against in their jobs or businesses or personally, and we've gone to bat for them," Dr. Wanda Ross Padilla, a past president of the Santa Fe NAACP, says. "This is a place where they can come to get support, to get feedback, to get help. In Santa Fe, like every community, that support is really important."
Cynthia Ruffin
“So I was sitting next to this guy at the tire shop, and he’s been here for 20 years. He’s a mechanic, originally from Dallas, but now he owns his own business. And he tells me that sometimes when he goes to install security systems here, the people whose house it is don’t want him to come alone, because he’s black,” Cynthia Ruffin says. “It’s things like that. Not necessarily in your face, but it’s there, insidious. He still loves it here, regardless of that sort of fucked-up mindset. People just manage to live their lives.”
Throughout her 41 years, Ruffin has developed a million different identities. She originally hails from Montreal, so that makes her Canadian. Her mother is from Trinidad and Tobago, so Cynthia is also Caribbean. She's a woman, she's queer. And she's black.
Ruffin, a performer for Wise Fool New Mexico, has lived in Santa Fe for nearly two years; she came from Los Angeles in search of some quiet space to work on her writing.
Ruffin's time here, her understanding of how black people are treated in Santa Fe, has been as multidimensional as she is.
Soon after moving, a co-worker blurted out that she didn't know how to categorize Ruffin. She wasn't Hispanic. She wasn't Native American. And she wasn't Anglo. In the end, Ruffin recalls, the co-worker decided that Ruffin might as well be Anglo, despite her obvious blackness, because she "spoke differently" than most African-Americans.
"It was like, 'What ship did you walk off of?' Why do you need to put me in this box?" Ruffin asks. "At the same time, being from Canada, I don't move through the world in the same fashion as African-Americans because my experience has been different. I'm quicker to say, 'Oh, that's an ignorant jerk,' as opposed to, 'Oh, that's a racist jerk.'"
On the other hand, Ruffin also has discovered a profound comradery amongst Santa Feans who share her depth of diversity: the Polish/Puerto Rican woman from New York; the African-American conservationist; the queer social justice activist from Santa Fe.
“To be happy, I don’t just need to be surrounded by black people,” Ruffin says. “Living here, I’ve been able to find a circle of folks, these weird, out-there kind of women, who are incredibly diverse. And that’s been really impacting and important.”
State Rep. Sheryl Williams Stapleton, who lived in St. Croix as a child, before moving to Queens, understands Ruffin's experience of being a black person in Santa Fe and not a native of this country.
"I grew up knowing that the priest was black, the doctor was black, the lawyers were black and the teachers were black," she says. "For me, coming to New Mexico from an island that was predominantly black, I found that black culture in New Mexico has always been an afterthought. So for black people who come here from other places, no matter where, it's still a real culture shock."
Abudujannah (Abdul) Soud
Anyone who’s been a part of the music and club scene in Santa Fe knows him.
Abudujannah (Abdul) Soud is everywhere-the tall, lanky frame; the hair that's typically braided into tight cornrows; the engaging smile. As a part-time DJ, part-time promoter, part-time businessman and part-time woodcarver, Soud knows just about everyone under the age of 40 in Santa Fe.
Born and raised in Lamu, an island off the coast of Kenya, Soud serves as the de facto representative for Santa Fe’s ever-increasing African and Caribbean population. He came to New Mexico in 2002, by way of Seattle, to sell his carvings and ended up staying. It’s the longest time Soud, who globe-trots the world a few months each year, has stayed in one place since he left his parents’ home for boarding school at 14.
"I've been in places that are worse in terms of race," he says. "Go to Denmark, to Copenhagen, where they use the N-word like it's nothing and there's nothing you can do about. Santa Fe is a lot better by comparison."
Indeed, the comfort and space the City Different has offered, despite the lack of a larger black experience, has allowed Soud to forge his own identity-free from the pressures of black life in denser locales.
"From my perspective, I like that there's few of us. If there were more black people here, it would be like living in a big city, and you'd have more attention, more tension focused on the black people living here," he says. "The way it is now, you have a very good sense of community here, especially among the Africans and Caribbeans."
Soud's passion for reggae music, and his knack for taking advantage of Santa Fe's historically sleepy nightlife, is emblematic of the opportunity a place like this affords him. For the last four months, Soud and his partners, DJ Dynamite Sol and Joe Ray Sandoval, have successfully started a burgeoning reggae scene in a town that's sorely lacking in black music.
"I was one of the people that were disappointed when the Paramount nightclub closed [in 2005]. People had nothing to do. They stayed in their house and drank and there was no control," Soud says. "With what we're doing with dancehall and reggae, we might even throw in some African music. Most of the people don't understand a word that they're saying, but the dance floor is packed."
Sandoval, founder of Chicanobuilt, a collective of Latino DJs and artists, says race has everything to do with why there are not more reggae and hip-hop nights around town. He points out that ever since the Paramount shut its doors, it’s been difficult to find venues in Santa Fe that will take on contemporary black music. Sandoval used to promote the wildly popular Chicanobuilt nights at the Paramount, a weekly event that attracted large crowds of Hispanic and black youth from around the city. But now that the club is gone, no venue has been willing to take advantage of the niche.
"The bar owners feel safer when it's not hip-hop that is being played," Sandoval explains. "They think it's all gangster music and that it's going to attract thugs."
Soud, Sandoval and Sol have made the most of their opportunity at WilLee's, mixing a well-honed selection of roots classics, dancehall jams and even some hip-hop. The four hours on Tuesday nights have recaptured some of the old energy from the Paramount: the young, mixed crowds; the sweaty dance floors; the pulse of a city that is clearly more diverse than it lets on.
“A lot of the black people who are showing up didn’t grow up with salsa or country. They grew up with reggae and Caribbean and African music,” Soud says. “The only reason you don’t see them out is because up until now, they didn’t have a choice as to what they could hear. Now they do. And it reminds us of home.”
