By Darian James | Culture & Food Contributor, Mood Magazine
Every summer, Uncle Robert would fry fish on a beat-up grill behind his apartment.
Grease popping. Church fans flapping. Old folks laughing like they’d already survived the storm. Kids zigzagging between folding chairs, chasing bubbles and permission slips. That concrete courtyard? It was our town hall, our altar, our cookout headquarters.
He never said it, but that fish fry was a ritual.
You could smell the red snapper and catfish from two blocks away. By the time the first batch hit the paper towels, the yard would be full—cousins, neighbors, choir members, whoever happened to be walking by. And always, the same unspoken rule: If you’re here, you’re family.
Uncle Robert wasn’t a loud man. He didn’t march or post about injustice. But at that grill, he taught resistance without using the word.
He seasoned the fish like he meant it. He poured ginger beer over ice and handed it to elders before anyone else. He turned the dial on his boom box to Al Green or Mahalia depending on the mood. He prayed before the food touched a plate.
And then? He listened.
That fish fry was where we processed the news that never made the 6 o’clock headlines. Where we debated school board decisions. Where Aunt Viv dissected police reports like a trial lawyer. Where someone’s nephew confessed he’d been roughed up by a cop, and we all leaned in. We didn’t rush to “fix” it. We witnessed it. We held it. We passed the hot sauce and the truth.
It was where the elders reminded us of how Harlem used to be—and warned us not to forget. Where young girls stood up and spoke their minds while chewing on hush puppies. Where Uncle Robert would say, “Don’t just vote. Know who you’re voting for.”
Nobody took notes, but we were all being educated.
It was resistance.
Not the kind with bullhorns.
The kind with potato salad and purpose.
Because Harlem doesn’t just resist with rallies.
Sometimes, we resist with red snapper and folding chairs.
We hold space in spite of what the world tries to take from us. We laugh loud and eat well as a declaration: You will not make us invisible.
Uncle Robert passed a few years back. The grill is gone. But every now and then, I’ll hear a sizzle in a song or smell cornmeal crust and be transported. And I remember: the fish fry wasn’t just about the food. It was about feeding something deeper.
Dignity.
Memory.
Survival.
When I host now, I do what he did. I make sure everyone eats. I play music with intention. I ask the first-timers how they got here. I check in with the cousins I haven’t seen since last July. And I pay attention—because the table always teaches something.
What my uncle taught me—what I’m still learning—is this:
Resistance doesn’t always look like protest.
Sometimes it looks like community.
Sometimes it tastes like fried fish.
And sometimes, if you’re paying attention, it sounds like an entire people saying:
We’re still here.
Pass the hot sauce.
Now tell me what’s really going on.
