She S Promised To Him But I Have Her Heart

Relationships can be tricky when there is a certain dynamic of power shifted in one person’s favor. Nika owns a two-family flat in the Ville neighborhood and rents her bottom apartment to Usian, who grew up in the area. Their relationship is one of mutual respect and understanding, but they always butt heads, which is what contributed to the uptight personality that Nika always displays. Usian is much older than Nika and thinks she’s an entitled brat, while Nika thinks that Usian is a hood rat that will eventually end up back in prison. Amanika, aka Nika, has her entire life ahead of her, but for some reason, she can’t figure it out. She went to college and graduated with honors from Washington University, with a degree in education; however, that’s not really what she wants to do. Since Nika was a teenager, she worked at her aunt’s African hair braiding shop, where all of her family works. They’ve been applying pressure for Nika to get married, and before her father died, he arranged her to be wed. She wants to be able to pick the man she marries, and her mother doesn’t seem to have a problem with it because she wants her daughter to be happy. However, the elders in the family are against it, and with her mother being Muslim, it makes things even more complicated. Jasper Simpson Jr., aka Usian Shakur, is an ex-convict trying to keep his life on track. He used to be a big-time drug dealer until he was locked up and served ten years in prison for drug trafficking and money laundering. He chose not to go back to the life, but a lot of his friends are still deeply involved and trying to get Usian to get back into the game. He found Islam while he was locked up and changed his way of living to better his life, but living in a neighborhood where drugs and violence dominate, there’s a fine line between doing the right thing and succumbing to the pressures of your environment.

Nika and Usian secretly got married, but not everyone is happy about it. Subira uses this as a way to show her family that they have no control over her daughter’s life, and Nika shows them that what she feels in her heart is more important than the deceitful arranged marriage that everyone wants her to go through. However, Nika’s family aren’t the only ones who are outraged about the marriage. Jessica is devasted by the news and refuses to accept the fact that Usian is done with her. CJ is stressed out, trying to hide Precious’s pregnancy from his uncle, not to mention he’s lied to Usian about Precious’s involvement in the robbery. Pooh is steady applying pressure, and CJ knows that he has to do something about it, especially since he killed his mother. CJ should have been handled this situation, and if he’s not careful, things can get even worse. Relationships will be put to the test, and loyalties will fall where they lie. The love that Usian and Nika share is unwavering, but even perfect relationships face adversity. Will they be able to overcome everything that’s coming their way, or will the hate and pressure being applied to the both of them be the cause of their downfall?

Subira has found out that Nika has been sneaking around with Usian, but no one seems to want to talk about it. Nika decided to move with her best friend to get as far away from Usian as possible. She agreed to go through with the marriage to Roc in order to fulfill her obligation and honor her father’s wishes. She would have preferred to marry the man she loves, but instead she has to settle for the latter. Usian decided to help his nephew and get back into the street life. It wasn’t hard considering that two of his closest homies were the men on the streets. He decided to teach CJ the ropes of being a hustler, but this move wasn’t going to be permanent. Nika may be promised to another, but that didn’t mean he was going to accept it, because she may be promised to another, but her heart belonged to him.

This 2009 (VII) special issue of Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge entitled “‘If I touch the depths of your heart’: The Human Promise of Poetry in Memories of Mahmoud Darwish,” is a commemorative issue on the life and poetry of the late Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, co-edited by a group of UMass Boston faculty and alumni. Other than keynote opening statements, the special issue is comprised of a selected series of longer and shorter poems by Mahmoud Darwish, followed by commemorative poetry and essays/articles that directly or indirectly engage with Mahmoud Darwish’s work and/or the subject matter of his passion and love, Palestine and human rights and dignity. Contributions include: Selections from the poetry of the late Mahmoud Darwish in two recently published collections: If I Were Another: Poems (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009) translated by Fady Joudah, and another, A River Dies of Thirst: Journals (Archipelago, 2009), translated by Catherine Cobham; keynote contribution by UMass Boston Provost Winston Langley, keynote contribution of a poem by Martha Collins; and commemorative poetry or prose by the Palestinian-American poet, writer, and scholar Lisa Suhair Majaj, Amy Tighe, Dorothy Shubow Nelson, Robert Lipton, Joyce Peseroff, Shaari Neretin, and Jack Hirschman; included are also essays/articles by Leila Farsakh, Rajini Srikanth, Erica Mena, Kyleen Aldrich, Nadia Alahmed, and Patrick Sylvain. Co-editors of the special issue were (alphabetically) Anna D. Beckwith, Elora Chowdhury, Leila Farsakh, Askold Melnyczuk, Erica Mena, Dorothy Shubow Nelson, Joyce Peseroff, Rajini Srikanth, and Mohammad H. Tamdgidi (journal editor-in-chief). This “Class-Book” was a student/instructor self-publishing experiment in a course offered at Binghamton University (SUNY) taught by Mohammad H. Tamdgidi in Spring 1997 when he was a graduate student enrolled in BU’s doctoral program in Sociology. The course was freshly designed and titled, “Soc 280Z: Sociology of Knowledge: Mysticism, Science, and Utopia.” The class-book was designed and printed in less than two weeks by the instructor in order to make it available to students as soon a possible after the class. The “fake” publisher name proposed by a contributing student author (Ingrid Heller) and adopted by the contributors was the “Crumbling Façades Press.” The class-book experiment was one that eventually inspired and contributed to the launching of Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge (ISSN: 1540-5699, 2002-). It was dedicated to the living memory of the late Professor Terence K. Hopkins (d. 1997), the founding Director of the Graduate Studies program of the Department of Sociology at SUNY-Binghamton. Contributors to the volume include: Shannon Martin, Ian Hinonangan, Nicholas Jezarian, Jeff Alexander: Tears of a Clown, Meghan Murphy, Heather Mealey, Daniel B. Kaplan, Ingrid Heller, Martin Magnusson, Arturo Pacheco, Keira Kaercher, and Mohammad H. Tamdgidi.

Important American periodical dating back to 1850.