Happens to Be Black

UNTITLED BY Glenn Ligon

This is what happens when I actually read the materials I stash away in my bags and back pockets. I learn new information, somehow it's right on time, too. To get the full effect, please turn on Cannonball Adderly's "Nippon Soul" album and read on.

B is for Black
A child of the civil rights movement, my mother believed that as black people we would use our natural talents and abilities to rise above adversity. Paradoxically, she also believed that blackness consisted of habits, not nature, and most of those that she associated with it were negative.

P Is for Proud
James Brown's "Say It Loud" was released in 1968. When it came on the radio, I could sing the "Say It Loud" part but I could only whisper, "I'm black and I'm proud." (camille note: hey, every little step will lead you somewhere...)

X is for X
When I was in my twenties, I met a member of the Nation of Islam who told me that since black people took the last names of their masters, we all had slave names. That was why, he explained, Malcolm Little had changed his name to Malcolm X. I considered changing my last name to X for a week or so, but decided that it involved too much paperwork and it would upset my mom.

*This is a quick excerpt from an entire alphabet of information from the essay Untitled by Glenn Ligon. It was a great first-of-the morning read and went well with my unpacking from a recent NYC weekend, the quick read of Richard Mayhew's work, and hanging of Tibetan Prayer Flags.

I'm wearing rainbow toe socks that reach my knees, this I tell myself, is in honor of Pride. But it's really not. It's in honor of the bright colors and my third pair of toe socks, which I hope to retain longer than the predecessors that last a week and two week respectively before being pilfered by friends and loved ones.

I fell in love with yet another dead person last night. Paul Darcy Boles' book 'Story Creating' has left me panting with the effort to keep my lust for his sentence construction in check. I've not yet thrown the book across the room in a fit of pique, so things are looking good, but I can't read it in public. I'm bound to corner some stranger and start reading (or worse, reciting!) passages.

Happy Tuesday!