1. Our Grandmas used to beat us to remind us that there was a massive price to pay for being black, free and imperfect. Years later, we’re still paying that price and we have yet to accept the probability that, all things considered, not one black man in this country really deserves the positive or [...]
1. Mama wanted me to love Michael Jackson as she did, but I couldn’t because all I could see was his work. My Mama, a 53 year-old woman from Forest Mississippi felt like she grew up looking horizontally at Michael and his brothers. Mama heard not only the Jackson 5’s work, but also their asphalted [...]
Ether. 1. Dear Uncle Jimmy, As a boy, I knew that there was a rickety bridge between right and wrong. And I learned that I would be disciplined more harshly for even looking towards the wrong side. But like you, I did and didn’t give a fuck. I broke bets I made with myself, defied [...]
“I’m tired of folks, them closed minded folk. You know what I’m sayin’? It’s like I got a demo tape and don’t nobody wanna hear it. But it’s like this: The South got something to say. That’s all I got to say.” Andre’ 3000 1. In 1998, I stood in the basement bathroom of [...]
Ether. “I was going to be a writer, God, Satan, and Mississippi notwithstanding … And, here I was, left with only myself to deal with. It was entirely up to me.” — James Baldwin 1961 1. The night that Barack Obama beat McCain/Palin into All-American dust, I hugged a lot of good white folks. Hundreds [...]
Ether. 1. An old, bonafied man worked the grounds of Millsaps College, one of my undergraduate institutions. The skinny joker drove around campus in a broke-down blue and white pick-up; I think he called it Pony. Afro-sheen as his witness, Cowboy had the shiniest, salt and pepper handle-barred mustache you’ve ever seen. Besides being one [...]
1. Ether. “I’m not wearing anything with Obama on it,” Mama tells me over the phone tonight, “and you shouldn’t either, Kie, definitely not when you drive down here for Christmas.” This is that rare time in my life where Mama seems as invested in her physical well-being as she is in mine. “I [...]
Ether. 1. Thrice upon a time, in Allentown, PA, I flew paper planes and lived below a thirty-two- year-old white boy named Kurt. Kurt said “you’s” a lot and sported a white boy shag. I learned later from Kurt that the correct term for a white boy shag was a mullet and that “you’s” was [...]
Ether. “We all been afraid to tell the truth. I want to make you cry. I want to make you think. I want to make you laugh.” – Bernie Mac Not so deep down, we all know that safety is an illusion. That’s why most of us do everything we can (healthy and unhealthy) to [...]
“Negroes know about each other what can here be called family secrets, and this means that one Negro, if he wishes can ‘knock’ the other’s ‘hustle’ – can give his game away.” James Baldwin 1. Dear Uncle Jimmy, Nigga, do you remember picking me up from Indiana in your long sky blue van on our [...]