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Archive for February 2013

The Classics: Cherish the Day - Sade

Simply stated, this is the most sensual song I've ever heard and I still play it like it was released last week. Timeless love.


You're ruling the way that I move
And I breathe your air
You only can rescue me
This is my prayer

If you were mine
If you were mine
I wouldn't want to go to heaven

I cherish the day
I won't go astray
I won't be afraid
You won't catch me running
You're ruling the way that I move
You take my air

You show me how deep love can be

You're ruling the way that I move
And I breathe your air
You only can rescue me
This is my prayer

I cherish the day
I won't go astray
I won't be afraid
You won't catch me running
I cherish the day
I won't go astray
I won't be afraid
Won't run away

You show me how deep love can be
You show me how deep love can be
This is my prayer

I cherish the day
I won't go astray
I won't be afraid
Won't run away
Won't shy

I cherish the day
I won't go astray

I cherish the day
I cherish the day
I cherish the day
I cherish the day
I cherish the day

The Classics: 'Where Did The Night Go' - Gil Scott Heron

It's been a minute since I posted one these, but here we go.  Gil Scott Heron's Where Did The Night Go is near and dear to me because I can relate.  I've definitely had those nights where I couldn't go to sleep because there were words I needed to say, but couldn't gather together in a way that relayed my feelings.  And fuck tears, and screaming and definitely exhausation, I wasn't going to rest until I got it right.  Enjoy.


Long ago the clock washed midnight away
Bringing the dawn
Oh God, I must be dreaming
Time to get up again
And time to start up again
Pulling on my socks again
Should have been asleep
When I was sitting there drinking beer
And trying to start another letter to you
Don't know how many times I dreamed to write again last night
Should've been asleep when I turned the stack of records over and over
So I wouldn't be up by myself
Where did the night go?
Should go to sleep now
And say fuck a job and money
Because I spend it all on unlined paper and can't get past
"Dear baby, how are you?"
Brush my teeth and shave
Look outside, sky is dark
Think it may rain
Where did
Where did
Where did

A Different Perspective Creates New Responsibilities: Review of 'Playing in the Dark'

I recently began reading Toni Morrison's Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination.  
The book consists of three essays:  Black Matters, Romancing the Shadow and Disturbing Nurses and the Kindness of Sharks.

I've nearly completed the first piece and had to record my initial thoughts. The essay focuses on the effect removing Africanist culture from literature has had on American writers, who were largely white males. 

This study is broadening my literary horizons for a number of reasons. First, while it is more common to see a white, male author surmise how women or individuals of another race perceive the world, it's not as common to see an author of another race and gender turn the tables.  So Toni Morrison's take, as a black woman, offers a dynamic perspective on how race in American literature imposes itself on this group.  Needless to say, the confidence she approaches this task with is inspiring to me as a black, female writer.

Second, I've always been angered by the fact that African American history has been removed and taught separately from American history as though one can exist without the other.  That being said, I've never carried this thought process into American/African American literature.  I've always attributed the lack of African American presence or our negative portrayal in American literature to the fact that the authors write about what they know or, more accurately, think they know. I assumed DuBois' veil was in play; white culture's lack of true understanding of our culture blocking them from creating characters of any true substance.  Furthermore, though I've lamented on what our absence or negative portrayal has done to the readers of American literature, I've never considered the effect it's had on the authors. 

Lastly, I want to share a quote I fell in love with from the preface:
The imagination that produces work which bears an invites rereadings, which motions to future readings as well as contemporary ones, implies a shareable world and an endlessly flexible language.
And another from Black Matters:
Writers are among the most sensitive, the most intellectually anarchic, most representative, most probing of artists.  The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power.
These capture just what I hope to one day achieve with my writing - to create something beautiful and meaningful that stands the test of time.  Toni Morrison has made it apparent just how much responsibility comes with this dream.

Feb. 20, 2013 Update: I just finished this book.  I can only say it's complex yet amazing.  I picked it up as a writer always seeking to learn more about my trade, but I'd definitely recommend it to anybody who loves literature.

The Happy Slave

You know what?? It's time for us to address the misperception of the happy slave.

I watched Alex Haley's Queen this weekend for the first time since its release in 1993.  I was lightweight outraged.  The way slavery and the post-reconstruction era were portrayed was distorted, to put it mildly. 

Because the story is about a mulatto ex-slave, Queen, it focuses on her struggle to find acceptance.  This is something to which a majority of people can relate.  Unfortunately, the truth specific to black people in this era was lost.  For instance, the viewer is confronted with Queen's friend who speaks her mind to her masters with no repercussions, Queen, who simply walks out of the big house's front door, twice, to escape slavery and a group of sharecroppers who go on strike.  Not only do they go on strike, but the only member of the group who faces consequence is the leader, Davis, who happens to be the father of Queen's first-born son Abner.  Davis was lynched for his revolutionary role in the community and this unfortunately, provided the only realistic portrayal of what was largely happening in the South during this era.

Twenty years after Queen, Django comes and demonstrates America's memory of black history has deteriorated even more.   Can I just say, they got y'all when they marketed Django as a movie about slavery??  Slavery in this context was used as the backdrop to a story and was used to draw an audience Quentin Tarantino wouldn't normally attract. 

In spite of all the violence and blood in the movie, the most horrific scene we witnessed that directly addressed slavery was four scars on Kerry Washington's back and the 'r' brand she received for running away.  Yes, the fact that a husband and wife were sold apart was sad, but it was part of the love story that fueled the need for the bloodshed that is classic Tarantino.

The other portrayals of slavery in Django were less than realistic: slaves swinging on a tree swing and fixing their hair while another slave is about to receive a beating and slaves leisurely strolling around the plantation when Django arrives on his first bounty hunting mission to name a few. 

Let me be clear, I'm not looking for more graphic footage here.  In fact, in the case of Django I'm glad there wasn't more blood in relation to slavery.  If there had been, I feel it would've gotten lost in Tarantino's signature exploding body parts and simply become part of the entertainment. 

What I'm asking for is an accurate portrayal.  Something that shows what most black people in America were going through during these eras, not just the stories the majority can relate to - a struggle for acceptance or coping with the loss of a mate.

I think this change of perception starts with who we permit to tell our story.  In the case of Queen, it turns out Alex Haley died before he completed the novel.  Because of this, David Stevens, completed the book and put it on screen.  David Stevens was born in Tiberias, Palestine.  And Django, written by a Italian/Irish filmmaker.  Not saying these men can't appreciate black history, but they overlooked key cultural pieces.  It could have been because they couldn't grasp their importance or it could have been for marketing reasons -  trying to sell a story that would appeal to a greater audience.  Whatever the reason, by continually allowing others to tell our story, we risk having history further rewritten.  We simply can't allow this to happen.

It's Unfortunate at Times, but Blood Really is Thicker Than Water

Blood ties are really something else.  I've seen it in my own life - relatives dealing me unimaginable and unjustifiable harm, but my love for them undeniably persists. 

Still, I couldn't help but feel shocked and saddened when I read Strom Thurmond’s black daughter: a symbol of America’s complicated racial history in The Washington Post this morning.  In it, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, Strom Thurmond's unacknowledged daughter, is quoted as having said she respected Thurmond.  Hard to digest when you go on to read this quote by him:
“There’s not enough troops in the army to force the southern people to break down segregation and admit the n—– race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes and into our churches.”
And Thurmond's hatred for the black race made no exception for his own flesh and blood or the teenage girl he impregnated.  Wouldn't even call the young woman by her proper name. 

Obviously, Thurmond was the personification of the history of this country's confused misconception about race relations, so I'll let that speak for itself.  I'm more intrigued by what in the human make-up allowed Washington-Williams to refrain from outing Thurmond by keeping her identity secret and thus seemingly betraying not only her people, but her own mother who was routinely and personally disrespected by Thurmond.  I understand the danger she and her mother would have been in if she'd made this revelation in the height of the civil rights movement, but to hold onto this knowledge until Thurmond's death in 2003? 

The ultimate betrayal  was to herself.  That's evident in the quote the article provides from Washington-Williams memoir, “In a way, my life began at 78.” 

So I go back to my original question, what is it about familial connections that permits people to go on loving and sacrificing in spite of it all?
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