Ep. 195 - Antonio Michael Downing: Becoming Yourself in a World That Misunderstands You

0:01 Stories from Real Life is a production of Media Well Done, LLC. On this edition of Stories from Real Life with Melvin E. Edwards, imagine being 11 years old. One day you're surrounded by the warmth, color, and rhythm of Trinidad, and the next, you're dropped into a small Canadian town where suddenly you're the only black kid anyone has ever seen. Overnight, identity becomes something you have to build and defend. In the Caribbean, they call a certain kind of swagger a Saga Boy. Confidence. Style. Bravado. But what happens when the persona you create to survive starts to replace who you really are?

0:43 His memoir Saga Boy became an international literary sensation, and today he's one of the most thoughtful voices exploring identity, masculinity, and belonging. This is a conversation about reinvention, about survival, and about the courage it takes to become yourself. This is Stories from Real Life, hosted by the 2026 American Writing Awards Male Podcast Host of the Year, Melvin E. Edwards. And today's story is Antonio Michael Downings, Becoming Yourself in a World that Misunderstands You. You are listening to Stories from Real Life, a podcast by engaging storytellers for engaged story listeners.

1:24 Here's your host, author and journalist, Melvin E. Edwards. Hello again, and welcome to another episode of Stories from Real Life. I'm your host, Melvin E. Edwards. Thank you for joining us for the podcast where our real stories are so much more interesting than fiction. Like this one. In this episode, we talk about identity, masculinity, family, and the moment you realize the person you've been performing as isn't really you. Antonio Michael Downing didn't just survive moving from Trinidad to Canada, he reinvented himself again and again.

2:11 And he's here today to tell us about his journey. Antonio, welcome to Stories from Real Life. Hi, Melvin. It's great to be here. Thank you for having me. Yes, thanks for joining us. You described your childhood as beginning in the rainforest of Trinidad and then suddenly shifting to rural Canada. What did that abrupt change do to your sense of identity? um i would say it it if i were a comic book hero that would be my inception event you know you know how there's always that moment where they go from human to some accident and suddenly they're not the same i would say that was it because you know if i could paint the picture for you um growing up in a very rural small village one road village really it's the bush um living with my grandmother and my older brother and, you know, really having a very different life.

3:15 Really, my whole universe was my grandmother and my brother and that one road street, one room schoolhouse I went to school in. You know, it's unlimited rainfall and sunshine. So the plants and the insects and birds, everything is huge. You know, pythons and alligators in the bush. It sounded good until you started describing that part of it. Well, yeah, yeah. There's real monsters. Everything grows big, including the predators. But, you know, we stayed out of the bush for the most part. And, you know, my grandma gave me two gifts in that. That's what I think of as my Garden of Eden.

3:55 My grandma gave me two gifts, two big gifts. She gave me a lot of things. But one was how to sing. She was always singing. morning, waking up, going to bed, if she's happy, if she's sad. She always had a song. Usually it was a hymn. And how to read and an appreciation for stories. And she taught me that because she was in her 80s, her eyes were bad, and she was like, you know, she taught me how to read so I could read her Bible, her Psalms and her Proverbs for her. And she It just blew my mind that how if you understand a couple of scribblings in this physical thing, you could somehow be transported to another place, another time with totally different people.

4:47 I couldn't get enough. I still can't. So she was my whole world. And then at 11, she she died. And within a matter of days, I was suddenly in Canada. And to give you a sense of where I was, it was just it was a couple hours north of Duluth, Minnesota, which is generally, you know, in the Midwest in America. That's that's pretty much as north as you can go. And yeah. And it was a very different world. So in that moment, everything that I thought of as myself, as who I am, was suddenly taken away.

5:32 How I dressed, how do people talk, how they looked, the weather, there was snow, the lake froze. Me and my brother would sit looking at icicles for hours because we thought it was amazing. Ice was outside and it wasn't melting. It was a huge culture shock. And we were in this town with mostly white and indigenous folks. And she was this tall Black lady with these two Black kids who spoke funny. And really, Melvin, for me, it was an existential moment. It was kind of like if everything that I would use to identify who I was had suddenly vanished and yet I still existed, The mystery that I've been trying to solve ever since is, well, where exactly does identity live?

6:32 Because all the things that I would have said, that if you ask someone, well, who are you? They'll tell you, well, I'm from here. These people had me. This is what my parents did. This is how I dress. This is the music I listen to. Well, what if all of that were taken away and you're still existing? For me, at 11, that's what happened. And I thought, I need to figure out, well, who am I now? Who am I now when all the things that I think made up who I was is suddenly gone? Wow. So what was the biggest shock for you being one of the few black people in Ontario, being in a cold place where you're used to tropical, having everybody speak differently, as you mentioned, what was the biggest shock for you?

7:24 I think because I came in winter and I came from a place where there was no such thing as winter. So I think that was the biggest shock that the landscape and the weather could just be so inhospitable. The lake, this huge body of water could just freeze and turn to ice. Because again, where I grew up, ice outside the freezer would quickly melt. And I know you're in Texas as well. So depending on where you are, that's probably true for you too. Yeah, I'm in South Texas, so it's very hot here. Yeah. So there's no such thing as ice outside the fridge that stays cold.

8:09 And so to come and to realize that, oh, not only are we going to freeze this, not only is ice existing outside in icicles, but we're going to freeze this whole big body of water right here. It's just going to turn to ice and you can walk on it as if you were some kind of frozen Jesus. Yeah. And that was shocking for me. That was shocking. But I think beyond that, it was just the people. It was just really different. Where I grew up, if you saw a white person, it was like, you could quicker see a unicorn than see a white person. Kids would literally point and follow you.

8:51 And to going to a place where I was that. If you saw a Black person, they would point and follow you, and I was the Black person suddenly. So that was also a really major shock, the landscape and the people. Okay. So your memoir is called Saga Boy, and it's about belonging. When did you finally start to feel like you were at home? And where were you when you started to feel that? Well, Melvin, I mean... I feel like it's probably still an ongoing journey because I guess, you know, following up on what I was saying earlier about, hey, if you identify home as these things and then all those things are gone, then where do you really belong?

9:39 And so the answer to that was a journey inward where I realized that the things and it took me a long time. It took me decades to kind of feel like, oh, I belong here. And it had a lot to do with being comfortable in my own heart. You know, our heart is our home. The things we love and we care for and engage with every day, those are the things that give us a sense of belonging. But it took me a very long time to figure that out and to see that. And so I, yeah, but I, you know, There are layers to it, but I would say, you know, creativity was always the thing that gave me a sense of home.

10:31 Like I felt like a weird kid until I performed in a school play all of a sudden and I felt at home on stage. And so that gave me a sense of, oh, I belong here because I could feel people seeing me and accepting me. Oddly enough, in performing a role, I was able to unleash a part of myself that allowed people to see me more clearly. And so playing music and singing songs was the same thing. And now writing my novel, Black Cherokee, writing Saga Boy, I feel like a lot of feeling like you belong is, first of all, being seen.

11:20 for who you are, not who people want you to be. And second of all, being accepted for what is seen and saying, hey, you're different, but you belong here. You're all right. We want you here. And that happens to all of us, right? We all have a moment where we do something that's quintessentially us and people are like, ooh. Don't do that again. Or you have a moment where you do something that's quintessentially you and people are like, yeah, do that some more. That's great. And we kind of get in where we fit in because the people that see us and accept us for who we are, I think that's the beginning of home and the beginning of community and the beginning of belonging.

12:08 That's great. So the term soccer ball comes from a Caribbean culture and it carries a certain swagger. Yeah. What did that identity mean to you when you were younger? Well, it's an interesting thing. The history of it is funny because... It came from a time in World War II where American ships were docking in Trinidad's harbor. Trinidad has a lot of great natural harbors. And so it's funny we're talking about it now because some of the ships involved in the Venezuela situation are docking in Trinidad right now. And so basically what happened was...

12:50 The American Navy showed up in World War II and basically they became the top of the food chain. The Yankees were the top of the food chain. And so all the men on this small island were sort of like, how do we claim a place in the, in this, like, how do we compete with this? And that gave rise to this concept of a saga boy. So a saga boy is basically a guy who is, and you know, we have different names for these guys over the years, you know, like he's a, you know, whatever you think he's a sweet man. He's a player. He's a, he's a pimp.

13:31 He's a, you know, we call them all kinds of things, but a saga boy was known for number one, always dressing fly, always looking top-notch, always having his hair done. We know those guys, right? And number two, being, you know, a Rolling Stone. He'd be around town. He'd be gambling. He might be, we have steel drums in Trinidad, like so Steel Pan. And Steel Pan is really a rebel. It started out as like something like, You know, vagabonds did. These weren't the guys who were going to church. These were the sort of guys who were out there living a fast life.

14:13 And then the third thing was they were known for what my grandmother would call running a string of trees, which means they had a bunch of women on the go all at once. That's what a Saga boy was. And so I named the book that because the book was an attempt for me to understand my history and my lineage and my past. And the more I dug into my history, then I had to understand my father's history. And then I had to understand my grandfather's. And then I was like, well, why are these West African people on an island off of South America anyway?

14:56 And the story was fascinating. My people came to South Carolina enslaved. And during what Americans call the Second War of Independence, Canadians call it the War of 1812, the British said, hey, if you come fight for us, we'll give you your freedom. And so they ran away, fought with the British. And when the truce was signed, they were like, well, we promised them their freedom. We can't just let them go back and be slaves. So they sent them to what was then a very underpopulated island, Trinidad, where it was part of the British Empire. And that's where my people come from. And so my granddad was what you'd call a saga boy.

15:40 There's a famous family story of how my grandmother goes out to the oil fields where he would work. And when you work in the offshore oil, you're there for a couple weeks on, couple weeks off. So he had a little house there. And she goes to visit him. And there's another woman cooking in the kitchen. My grandmother, yeah, right? My grandmother takes the pot and throws the food out, says, hey, you ain't cooking for my husband. She and my grandmother starts cooking her food for my grandfather. She grabs the pot and throws that out. And so there was a war of the pots. Famous family. Yeah.

16:21 And my granddad was like, you know, he was tall. He was 6'4". He had money in a time where a lot of people weren't doing well. He was working in the oil fields, which is pretty much the most money a black man could make in the country at that time. And so the only picture I have of him, he's wearing a fedora tilted to the side, three-piece suit, silk tie, silk cravat in the pocket, And he used to call himself the god of Negro. Not the prince, not the prince, not the duke, not the king, but the god.

17:06 And so he was the fitting definition of a saga boy. Right? Wow. Yeah. So coordination wasn't good enough for him. No. No. He wanted to be the one who said, let there be. That's what he wanted. And then my dad followed in his footsteps. My dad was a rolling stone. My dad was a hustler. My dad was dressing nice and had his array of women. And as a young man, I was locked into two big issues for me. One is I didn't ever want it to be like my dad because I just saw that life.

17:50 And I was just like, nah, that is, I saw the negative downside of that life. Right. Because I grew up without him. And I was like, no, I don't ever want to be that. But on the other hand, I looked like him. I talked like him. I had his charm. I had his a lot of the things that made him a really, you know, personality. I had all of those same things. And so there was a conflict in me about I don't want to be him. But man, I really am him genetically. And so how do I figure out how to make my own choices when I'm living in that legacy? And so even though I didn't, you know, I was a little bit of a saga boy when I was younger.

18:34 But as life turned out, I was just like, no, there's more important things than that. But I named the book that because that legacy was what I was born into and what I was trying to outrun. So as a part of outrunning that legacy, is that why you named yourself John Orpheus to perform under? Well, so that's an interesting thing. And I'm saying this because I just got back from New Orleans to do a podcast down there. And it just happened. We booked a podcast back in August and we just said February 10th.

19:15 Who cares? Well, February 10th is right in the middle of Mardi Gras. So I'm in the French Quarter, middle of Mardi Gras. And you know what it looks like. You know, people in the streets wearing masks, the music, the performances, the colorful costumes. Well, in Trinidad, we had a thing called Carnival. And Carnival happens the same time as Mardi Gras. And basically, it's Mardi Gras for the whole country. So it's Mardi Gras times like 2 million people plus a bunch of tourists. And I grew up with that.

19:57 And the history of Carnival is really interesting, right? the enslaved folks at one point the french that's why mardi gras is it's a french um it's a black french um ceremony so it started with the the balls that you know if you ever seen mary antoinette or louis the 16th they have the big ball gowns with the mask and and everything they would they would play a masquerade as a party well the enslaved folks the black folks were like when they're doing their things, they started doing their own masquerade to almost kind of to mock the slave masters, but also to have their own party, right?

20:42 And to this day in Trinidad, it's called playing mass, right? Like playing masquerade. But if you picture that Mardi Gras scene with all the mask and all the costumes, it's like they're hiding, but actually... In a carnival, you don't put on a mask to hide. You put on a mask to reveal. The mask allows it gives the enslaved folks anonymity. So now they can express themselves in a way that they couldn't when people could see their faces. You see what I'm saying? Mm hmm. So in this case, the mask is, and I quote Oscar Wilde, a famous Irish writer who wrote this line.

21:32 He said, give him a mask and he'll tell you the truth. And it's and it's this idea. You can see it with Google, right? Like there's a great book called Everybody Lies. And it's these these researchers got access to all the Google searches. And what they realized was a Google search is it's like a confessional, like a Catholic confessional box because people don't think anyone's listening. So they tell the truth. They hide behind the anonymity to reveal the truth. That's how the mask works. So when I started, I used to play music in bands. And every band I was in, I took it as I was playing a character.

22:15 So I would wear, for me, the name was the mask. And so I called myself like John Orpheus because I wanted to wear masks that would allow me to reveal a part of myself that I couldn't otherwise reveal. And I created John Orpheus as kind of all the insecurities that I felt, all the doubts that I felt, all the hangups that I had, all the things I needed to heal from. I created almost like I was Clark Kent and John Orpheus was Superman. It was he didn't have any of those vulnerabilities. And so by being him, I could express a level of confidence and security and belonging and command of my atmosphere that I couldn't as just lowly old Antonio Michael Downing.

23:11 Yeah. So your life seems to be a whole series of reinventions. You were a rapper, soul singer, writer, broadcaster. So were those transformations intentional or did they help you survive? I would say both. And also they were unintentional. They were, I mean, I would say fundamentally they're coping mechanisms. Like when I look back at that young man, that boy, and all the things that he was hurt about and all the things he needed help with, being able to write and sing a song was healing for him. And those reinventions were so that he could fully inhabit those songs he was singing.

23:57 Right. So I was in a punk band and I was like, man, you can't be Antonio Michael in a punk band. You need a name. So I called myself Mike Danger. But I spelt the danger with a J. And then I started wearing army fatigue jackets, because I felt like that was the energy of that music. And I wanted to fully, fully, I needed to fully inhabit it. I'll use the word need, because really, it was a coping mechanism. I needed it to survive. And as a soul singer, I call myself molasses because I was like I went down.

24:41 I was in the south and I went to I was in Memphis and and I wanted I didn't want to see Graceland. I wanted to see Al Green preach at his church. And I called, and she said, look, if he's not on tour, baby, he's preaching. And I checked, and there wasn't no tour, so I showed up. And Al Green, he sang God Bless America, and I wanted to be American right in that moment. I almost switched allegiances. And that changed me. So when I came back, I wanted to just sing soul music. I wanted to be a preacher like Al Green, like the preachers I saw when I was a kid.

25:25 But I couldn't call myself Mike Danger. I couldn't call myself Antonio Michael. Yeah. So I said, no, no, no, it's molasses. Right. The thing that comes from the sugar cane, it's thick, it's nutritious. They use it for healing. They use it for sweetening. They use it for like if you got to burn, you put some molasses on it, it'll it'll heal your skin. And so that's where I went with it. And then, you know, so in every case, it was me responding to life in a way where I clung to the inspirations I got and I needed. to fully inhabit it, then that meant that I needed to give it a name where I felt like I was that character, right?

26:11 You know? And it's not unlike an actor, right? It's not like, you know, if Michael B. Jordan was in Sinners and he was like, who's that? That's Michael B. Jordan. It would be, you know, you got to give him a name for the character he's playing because he's not Michael B. Jordan in that context. And so there you go. All right, that's interesting. So when an artist changes identities as many times as you have, what stays constant at your core? Interesting. I like to think that for me, like when I got into it, what I saw was this, Melvin.

26:55 Human beings are always changing clothes and changing how they behave. I just gave it names. Right. If you if you go to work, you dress a certain way, you talk a certain way, you behave a certain way. You see your co-workers from work when they're out on the town with the boys or the girls. What happens? Different way of dressing different. You might not even recognize that person as the same person. They're going to look and behave totally different. You go to a family gathering. Right. With the extended family, you might see a different dress and a different level of comfort because they're around their people. So I don't see it as becoming something different.

27:37 I see it as doing what human beings do every day, but just giving it a name to accentuate the fact that this change is happening. So to your question, I feel like every time I do this music and I inhabit this space, there's a new part of me that I can access. And that new part of me comes with me to the next thing. And now that I'm writing novels and written a memoir, all of those things come with me. But they were always there. I kind of see, you know, when people talk about growing up, maturing, becoming, you know, becoming a man, I think a lot of times we think of people becoming something new.

28:32 I prefer to see it as becoming more comfortable with the same person I've always been. Because we know who we've been from the beginning. It hasn't changed much. I think what's different is we're not willing, we're comfortable with it. We accept it. We see it and we love it. We cherish it. We welcome it in. a lot more than maybe we did when we were less confident and younger. And so to inhabit my own skin is why I did all of these different roles. And I would say that what stays consistent is the seeking for a sense of wholeness.

29:15 And that seeking actually defines my character and the flow of my life But the more I do it and the more I inhabit it, the more whole, the more complete I feel, which is just another way of saying I just feel comfortable in my skin because I was John Orpheus, because I was molasses, because I was my danger. Every single one of those taught me something that make up who I am now. Okay. So let's talk about Saga Boy some more and then writing your memoir. It deals with family trauma, colonial history, and masculinity. What was the hardest truth you had to confront while you were writing it?

29:59 Wow. The hardest truth I had to confront with writing Saga Boy. Well, first of all, it was all hard. At one point, I remember having a conversation with my agent and And he's like, how's it going? Because they're curious because they need to get the book to the publisher. And I said, man, every 15 minutes I write, I need about 45 to recover from what I wrote. The hardest truth I would have to say is about childhood and how the things in childhood echo right through your life.

30:43 Because the more I pulled on the threads in my life, the more they went back to being a child, the good and the bad. Some of the stuff that happened to me as a child, I was molested by some neighbors when I was little. And as a man, that's like, how do you even process that? And I thought the further away I got from that, the easier it would be. But in actuality, when I look back, I realize that that's not how trauma and PTSD works. It's like the echo of it just got louder and louder the more I didn't face it.

31:27 And so I had to face up to it. And I had to figure out, I think the hardest thing was like, how do you define yourself as a man having gone through that as a child? Because what it does is it interrupts the normal growth and the normal development. And, you know, people don't want to talk about it. But the truth is, it happens way more than people want to admit. And we're not aware of it because it's so shameful for everyone, right? So everyone kind of puts it to the side. But part of dealing with that and writing about it in the memoir is, like, I don't carry that shame anymore.

32:08 And that's a great healing that I was able to receive just from finding the courage to actually go back there and live that moment and live those moments again. So that's a pretty difficult thing, I think, and a pretty impactful thing over the course of my life, I would say. Okay, so that leads into my next question, and that may also include part of the answer. So did writing your memoir heal anything in your family relationships, or did it reopen old wounds? Probably both. So one thing about my memoir, Melvin, is I interviewed – I did 250 hours of interviews, right?

32:56 A lot to do with family and people who are close, but basically people who knew me like literally when I was in my mom's belly, who knew my parents all the way up to people that that I'd met just a few years before I was writing. And what I wanted to do was a fact check myself. I wanted to trigger new memories, but I also wanted to I felt like it was the honorable thing to do because I'm writing about them too. And I felt like I didn't want them to find out I wrote about them in a book that's published all over the world.

33:38 from someone else so part of it was i wanted to be the person that talked to them and see if they had concerns you know i didn't make any commitment to anyone but i just wanted to give them the chance to to talk to speak on it and so so i would say yes it opened a lot of wounds it opened all the wounds but i think in order to heal from wounds i don't know how you you know you got a wound on your arm It's not going to just heal if you ignore it. So I think part of that is opening that wound carefully, tending to it, putting the salve on it, bombing it, binding it, caring for it.

34:25 And I think a lot of what we do in life is we just, you know, everyone's busy. Time moves in one direction. And so a lot of times, you ever had the old folks tell you, oh, boy, why do you want to know that old story? You don't want to know that. We don't tell you because we want to protect you. But then when you find out the story, what you realize is they don't want to tell you because they're trying to protect themselves. because they don't want to go into that. And so I think Saga Boy is me going into the things that I'd been running from my whole life.

35:06 It's me digging into those things, reopening them, and just having the courage to be like, okay, I've run from this forever. Running doesn't seem to be working. So let's try some different approaches to engaging with these things. And as a result, there was a lot of healing. I hadn't talked to my mom and dad for a minute, and I reconnected with them through doing the book. my siblings together and closer. I have nine siblings, so I thought the process of doing it and talking about the stories, suddenly they were talking to each other in ways they weren't before.

35:50 But you know the biggest thing, Melvin, that I feel it did was there's a whole generation of kids who live in America, live in Canada, who are descended from this same family, but they've never been back to Trinidad. They've never been home. And so writing this book what I realized connects them to their heritage in a way. Some of them read it and were like, and got blessed from reading it because they knew they had answers to questions they always wondered about. And I know that there are many of them that are five, six, 10, 15 years old.

36:35 One day they're going to read it and they're going to feel the same way. And so I think it healed me. It healed the family, not fully, but it started the conversations in the family. And I think down the road, it's going to continue to bless the family. And, you know, I'm proud of that. I'm proud of, you know, strangers read it and connect with it and see themselves in those stories. But I'm really proud that it gives a legacy and a lineage and a connectedness to future generations of our family. And that's really, I'm proud of that. So do you feel you belong more fully to Trinidad or Canada at this point?

37:21 I don't know. At this point in my life, I've probably spent, I've spent just as much time, I've spent way more time in America and Canada than I have in Trinidad. But you never forget the place you learn to see. And so Trinidad is always kind of the core of me. But the truth is, most of the time since, not only in Canada, but I've lived in New York, spent a lot of time in the South, spent a lot of time in the Midwest, in Michigan, Minnesota. And so I think after a while, I just feel comfortable.

38:05 My home is my heart. Anywhere I show up where people see me and accept me and love me, I belong there. And that's what I've learned is that there isn't the gift of having traveled and have had this kind of existence of just moving and always moving and always moving and always seeking. um is that eventually you feel comfortable you learn how to be comfortable wherever you are and for me that comfort is in people who appreciate me and welcome me those people when you do that thing and they're like yeah do more of that do more of that come here you know And I have those people in Trinidad.

38:56 I have them in all over the U.S. I have them all over Canada and even for parts further flung. And so wherever they are, I am. For people who are struggling with their own cultural identity, what advice do you have for them? Yeah, that's profound, a profound question. I would say, first and foremost, understand that the past is never over. The past is happening right now.

39:38 And whether we are all born into lineages of this body we have and the DNA that makes it, the family we're born into, the town, the state, the nation, We all have lineages that we're born into. And whether or not you understand them, they will shape your horizon. They will set the table from which you will eat from. So the first thing I would say is understand that history is never over and learn yours. Learn the story of your people, where you come from. A tree with no roots will be blown away in the storm.

40:21 So that's the first place I would go. Talk to the old folks. Talk to the people. They have the stories. Talk to them. You know, go read books, go watch documentaries, connect with the stories of your people, because that's those stories. That is all we are. All we are the stories they tell about us. Right. And we're lucky if 100 years from now, they'll tell a story about us. You know, that's all we are. This is all we are. And so learn the stories, cherish them, seek them out, share them. Because I think that's where identity lives.

41:04 And understand that also, because history is never over, you are the ancestors. So the people that you look back and think, oh, man, they sacrificed to put me here, and we revere them, and they're so important. Well, you are that. Because down the road, people are going to look back and say, well, what did Melvin E. Edwards, what did he do? Who is he? Right. Oh, he's one of the ancestors because, look, he did he did this podcast and he brought people's stories forward. And that's what they're going to say about you. And so you have to live in a sense of an expanded sense of time.

41:46 The Anishinaabe people, the Great Lakes say. When we make plans, we make plans thinking of seven generations ahead. And I believe that. I believe that that is the key for us. So number one, know your stories, seek them out, seek out your elders, seek out the books, wherever you're going to get it, documentaries, whoever's telling it, go learn the stories. Number one, tell the stories. Number two, and live the stories because you're the one they're going to write stories about and not too far from now. Yeah, that's really interesting. And I can relate to that so well.

42:29 I've written two books about my family's history. And I say now that I wrote those books so that my ancestors will be remembered. And I recently wrote a novel. It hasn't been released yet. It comes out May 1st. And I say I wrote that so I'll be remembered. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right along with what you're saying there. Yeah. What we're doing with that is we are collapsing. Like we have this idea of past and future and present, but actually the past is living now and the future is living now. And so what you just described, you've collapsed all of those time periods into one where you are commemorating those long gone and you are speaking to those long, those who far in the future who are going to come.

43:21 And you're doing it right now. And so really, we're defying time. And that is what I think is the key to identity. And really, it's the key to human life. It really is the key to human life, because we have to realize that our lives as a blink are but we are connected to other lives that are eternally with us and will be here as long as we do the work to celebrate them. So I commend you on looking forward and looking back. Thank you. So let's talk about your novel, Black Cherokee. Tell me about that. Yeah, well, I mean, it's very, so it's a story of, It's a story based on a slice of lost American history, which is that the five so-called civilized tribes of the Southeast, many of the elites in those tribes kept slaves.

44:21 And then hundreds of years later, those enslaved people who basically are parts of the tribe, they lived with them, they worked with them, they suffered with them when they went hungry, when there wasn't food, they were on the trail of tears that took them from the southeast out to Oklahoma area. And to this day, All five of these tribes have black people who are racially black, but culturally, they're part of these tribes. They're called the black freedmen. And to this day, the Cherokee are the only ones who've accepted them as full citizens.

45:02 And they did so in 2019, so just the other day. So this is an ongoing but still forgotten struggle. And it's a story of a coming of age, a fictional story of a coming of age of a young girl, Ophelia Blue Rivers, who is born into a family of Cherokee freedmen. And again, as I said before, she's caught in the lineages of her body, of her family, of her tribe, of her skin color, of her country. And the book is about her growing up, trying to figure out how to be, because the Cherokee people are saying, well, your hair's too curly.

45:45 You don't look like us. You don't belong. And the Black people are saying, well, culturally, you're kind of weird. You're praying to the river. You're doing some strange stuff. And so she gets rejected by both. And she has to figure out how to grow up. in a situation where the communities you belong to reject you. Well, that sounds like a powerful story. I'm interested in reading it. Well, that's exciting. I'm glad. I think so. I really do. You know, one of the big things, Melvin, is like, Ophelia is being asked to choose between the two parts of her identity, and we often have that, right?

46:28 Are you black or are you white? And we usually choose the one that gives us the most security in the particular circumstances we find ourselves in. But all you got to do is send in one of those DNA testing labs, and you'll quickly find out that it is not just black or just white. It's a lot of stuff, a lot of mix-up. But in order to choose to fit into society, you have to choose one and get rid of everything else. as an identity. And so Ophelia is someone who decides, you know what, it's too much for me to get rid of one or the other because they're both precious to me.

47:15 Right? And so it asks a question, hey, does it have to be black or white? Or could we do something that's like, you know, both and? Instead of either or, you know what I mean? And I feel like that's a big question we always face in our society, right? Everything that's going on politically, it's like, hey, we got a constitution. Does it apply to black people fully? Does it apply to trans people? You know, they live a lifestyle that's not what I do. Are they really citizens? You know what I mean? Or immigrants, do they get habeas corpus and all the protections of rights?

47:58 That's a big issue right now. Are they fully in? And so this question of who's in and who's out is central to all our politics. Every time you see some head on the TV arguing, they're arguing probably about who do we consider? We have a war right now, right? than Iranian lives? Who's in and who's out? This is the question. That's almost a promo for my upcoming novel. It's called Nuremberg, Mississippi. I take the principles from the Nuremberg trials and place them in Jim Crow, Mississippi with a Black citizen who uses that principle to sue the state of Mississippi for crimes against humanity.

48:49 Wow. Yeah. Well, that is a, um, that's a really like, I've been thinking about that a lot because, um, Isabel Wilkerson has a book called Cast. And in Cast, she kind of studies a very celebrated book. She kind of studies caste system. So anywhere where someone says, hey, you are born inherently better and you are born inherently lesser. And she sees all these patterns in India, in South Africa, in Jim Crow South. And one of the things she said is she studies also Jews under the Nazis as well as Jim Crow South.

49:31 And she says in Jim Crow South, there are things that they did in America that the Nazis rejected as too extreme. So this framing of your novel of bringing Nuremberg to Jim Crow South, if you actually applied the rules of it. But we know that, right? Because all those Black people went to fight for freedom and justice and liberty for all and defend the freedom of Europe. And when they came back, they couldn't even pee in the same bathrooms. It's amazing. It is absolutely amazing. Yeah, it's interesting.

50:12 And so, yeah, I look forward to reading your book because I think that that's a fascinating concept. Yeah, we'll have to trade books. I'll read your Black Cherokee and you can read Nuremberg, Mississippi. That's a deal, sir. That is a deal. All right. So I just have a couple of questions left as we start to wind down the conversation. So when you look back at the arc of your life, from Trinidad to music stages to bookshelves, What do you think the story is really about for all of those different parts of your life? Well, I think they're all related. I think there's a boy in Trinidad that is creative, that is thoughtful, that really loves his grandmother and learned his lessons that she gave him, her lessons really well.

51:02 I think music was me applying... her lesson about singing. She sang because it allowed her to spin the difficulty of her life into gold so she could be a compassionate, loving person in circumstances that would make others bitter. So I think the music is about me doing that for my life. And I think Bookshelves is about her other lesson. which is about words and stories. And the parts of the Bible she made me read for her were psalms and proverbs and these very poetic, inspirational and poems.

51:49 wise parts of the Bible. And so I think what I'm doing now is trying to inhabit that and write, you know, modern day secular scriptures in a way. Like I wanted to have that weight and that heft and that wisdom. And so I think that that's the through line is that really I learn the lessons, I apply one, and then I move on to the second one. And I think what it all means in the end, I don't know, Melvin, because hopefully I'm far from that point. And really, I think also others will write the story of what I'm doing.

52:31 My job is not to characterize it. My job is to do it, is to be here and bear witness and do the work and to the best of my ability. And I'll let others tell me what the story is. But that's how I see it. That's how I see them being connected. All right. So as a final question today, how can people connect to you or connect to your work? Wow. You know, the thing, the platform I'm most active on these days is Instagram. So it's just my name, Antonia Michael Downing, at Antonia Michael Downing on Instagram.

53:13 Same on Twitter or X, you know, same on TikTok, same on Facebook. I'm on all the platforms, but I tend to engage more on Instagram. And of course, you can look up the The books Saga Boy and Black Cherokee, they're available at your bookstores or they can be ordered or online. And, you know, I would encourage people if there's something that moves you about this conversation or connects with the themes in the books to reach out. I take a while, but I will answer every single message. I promise you that.

53:54 That sounds great. And I will include links in the show notes so people can just click on it and have quick access to your books. Beautiful. Thank you. Yes. So our guest today has been Antonio Michael Downing. Antonio, thank you so much for being here. I really enjoyed this conversation. Melvin, it's an honor and a pleasure, and I wish you the best. And thank you for having me. Thank you. Appreciate that. So again, all the links are in the show notes if you want to get a copy of Antonio's books and contact him on Instagram. Ask him a question yourself. So that's it for this week's episode of Stories from Real Life. Until next time, don't forget to shine your light wherever you go. That was Stories from Real Life.

54:42 Join us again next week for another great storytelling journey. See you next time.