With Sighs Too Deep for Words

  If you white,  yo u alright If you yellow,  y ou mellow If you brown,  s tick around If you black,  s tep back   We were Negroes and I was in the first grade when our teacher for some inexplicable reason asked us to line up by skin color. Thinking generously, one might think she was just trying out a new method for lining up so the same beginning and end of the alphabet weren’t in the front and the back. Thinking otherwise, one could imagine all manner of reasons as I have over the more than six decades since then.    Still it’s inexplicable because this was in segregated Mississippi, meaning all the students were Negroes as was our teacher. But I no longer think the why is really important as I look back.   I see my six-year-old self place myself in line among my darker chocolate friends near the end of the line. My friends laugh and my teacher tells me to stop fooling around. When I look at her with my face wrinkled in confusion, she grab...

Refraction is the bending of light when it goes from one medium to another so, when a ray of light passes through a glass prism, refraction of light occurs both, when it enters the prism as well as when it leaves the prism. Since the refracting surfaces are not parallel, therefore, the emergent ray and incident ray are not parallel to one another. In this case the ray of light is deviated on passing through the prism.     Even though I loved my mother, I did not like her. She was uncomfortable and unsettling to me whenever I was in her presence. Her language was crude and southern country. A speech impediment further diminished her articulation. She wore too-small clothing that shouted, “Buy me!” She preferred cheap fur coats over wool or down, and even cheaper wigs over her own hair. She was the original hoochie mama in my life. I loved her for all of this. She drove obscenely huge cars in flashy colors as if she had a small penis to compensate for. We knew she’d bribed ...

“I think it is one of the tragedies of our nation, one of the shameful tragedies, that eleven o’clock on Sunday morning is one of the most segregated hours, if not the most segregated hours, in Christian America”  (Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.).       I’ve heard several versions of this quote attributed to Martin Luther King over the years and because there were so many variations, I decided to research the exact wording as well as the source of this quote. What prompted King to utter this sentence? What was the context? Was it written like “Letter from Birmingham Jail” or “Why We Can’t Wait,” or was it a speech like his famous “I Have a Dream” or “Mountaintop” speeches? Something else?       In my mini-research, I learned that in 1968 on the Dick Cavett Show, James Baldwin attributes at least part of the “segregated hour” quote to Malcolm X: I know as Malcolm X once put it: “the most segregated hour in American...

  “Complicit” On a group’s page, I shared a Facebook post by Ally Henny, written after the murder of Ahmaud Arbery became another shame upon our nation.  This post got five “likes” and 13 comments. Henny began with this paragraph: Honestly, I don’t need white folks sympathy right now because we have been telling you on this very app for years that there’s a problem. Y’all will cry a few tears, make some posts, and then not do crap beyond that. What are you going to do different?  And ended with these two paragraphs: Some of yall are mad because you see yourself as good and you think that I shouldn’t snap at people who want to help. Fine. If you want to help you need to get out here and COLLECT YOUR PEOPLE. You have to deal not only with your own racism but you must get your people to do better. You have to stop tolerating it. You have to seek a brand of justice that elevates the marginalized more than it makes you look good.   At this point yo...

"White women tears are especially potent and extra salty because they are attached to the symbol of femininity. These tears are pouring out from the eyes of the one chosen to be the prototype of womanhood; the woman who has been painted as helpless against the whims of the world. The one who gets the most protection in a world that does a shitty job overall of cherishing women. The mothers, sisters, daughters and aunties of the world’s biggest bullies (white men). But the truth is, white women have been bullies themselves because they’ve been the shadows behind the white men who get all the blame. They have been doing much of the subjugation in white supremacy without any of the accountability, because: innocent white woman is a caricature many have chosen to embrace, even subconsciously. Why? Because it shields them from consequences. We talk about toxic masculinity but there is toxicity in wielding femininity in this way. The Damsel in Distress reveling is real. Alice ...

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."   (Henry David Thoreau, Walden ) Day 1:   Wii Polo: Did You Find Them Dancing in the House of the Lord? One of my greatest joys at Annual Conferences are the worship services. They have been, for me, times to feel the spirit moving and binding us together -- in the proclamations and in the music. Annual Conference 2019 disappointed me in the music. In fact, t he music leader verbally expressed almost a contempt for contemporary Christian songs.  And I was looking forward to returning to church with some new songs for our church's worship experience. The first disappointment was on Day 1 when we were promised international music; but only two -- maybe three -- songs even approached international: "Marching in the Light of God" and one whose title I don't know. There wa...

One of their planned themes for this year’s annual event was Racial Justice and they were looking for videos to show. I was the lone woman of color in the room, compelled to speak into the silence that I felt was waiting for me, breaking one of my own rules about participating at such events. I suggested a video from  Crac king the Codes: TheSystem of Racial Inequity   a World Trust documentary by Shakti Butler. One of the stories in this documentary is told by Dr. Joy DeGruy, a renowned researcher, educator, and author who does lectures, workshops, and seminars related to her two decades of field experience in social work. I’ve used the clip, “At the Grocery Store,” as an example of profiling and white privilege. It also has an answer for white women who always wonder what they can do about the overwhelming issues related to racial injustice. I thought it met their criteria: a short video that addresses women where they are, where they live. The clip is jus...