May 23, 2020

covid-19: day 71 | US: GA | info | act

Primer For Blacks
By: Gwendolyn Brooks (1980)

Blackness is a title, is a preoccupation, is a commitment Blacks are to comprehend— 5 and in which you are to perceive your Glory. The conscious shout of all that is white is “It’s Great to be white.” 10 The conscious shout of the slack in Black is "It's Great to be white." Thus all that is white has white strength and yours. 15 The word Black has geographic power, pulls everybody in: Blacks here— Blacks there— 20 Blacks wherever they may be. And remember, you Blacks, what they told you— remember your Education: “one Drop—one Drop maketh a brand new Black.” 25 Oh mighty Drop. ______And because they have given us kindly so many more of our people Blackness stretches over the land. 30 Blackness— the Black of it, the rust-red of it, the milk and cream of it, the tan and yellow-tan of it, 35 the deep-brown middle-brown high-brown of it, the “olive” and ochre of it— Blackness marches on. The huge, the pungent object of our prime out-ride 40 is to Comprehend, to salute and to Love the fact that we are Black, which is our “ultimate Reality,” which is the lone ground from which our meaningful metamorphosis, 45 from which our prosperous staccato, group or individual, can rise. Self-shriveled Blacks. Begin with gaunt and marvelous concession: YOU are our costume and our fundamental bone. 50 All of you— you COLORED ones, you NEGRO ones, those of you who proudly cry           “I’m half INDian”— 55 those of you who proudly screech “I’VE got the blood of George WASHington in MY veins” ALL of you— you proper Blacks,           you half-Blacks, 60 you wish-I-weren’t Blacks, Niggeroes and Niggerenes. You.

Because we are privileged and can turn it off for a while, we made pizza this evening.

Henry, Autumn, and I have started watching Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Henry seems to like Star Wars even though we’ve shown him none of the films yet. He still might be a bit young for this series, but he’s into it. I was eight when the original film came out, so this is probably OK. There are worse things he could watch, though they could have left out Jar-Jar.