Daddy, I love you, but dude, Kojak? Turned up to deaf? Ahh those were the days. Unemployed and back with the folks after 18 years, I was not the happiest camper at camp. So I chased a few highs (and a few job leads). First Oreos, then some retail therapy, and then something I’d discovered [...]
Tag: i was just thinking
Conversations that happen in my head v.1
"I think inspiration is given too much credit. It can only do so much—never any of the heavy lifting that’s required when crafting a poem. Inspiration is a lazy architect who gives you a blueprint with only the front door drawn, then snoozes on a hammock while you build the entire house." (David Hernandez) Aww [...]
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On noise
(or, I Wish She Would Shut the Hell Up) Heard and understood are not the same things. She bangs at her keyboard until my ears bleed her litanies; afternoon cat stretches audible; her yawns long and invitational: Please pay attention to me. Stack papers one more time for good measure; the break between the walls [...]
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Blueberry Square
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl - Age 14 I'm not sure why I was so obsessed with black boys dying in the late 80s and early 90s. It could've been the Philadelphia and Baltimore newscasts my family watched to supplement the local WBOC news. WBOC talked mostly of soybean crops and the [...]
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Wordsoun’ ‘Ave Poweh, or, She Really Was a B#?@&
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl - Age 12 Well, she was. All I was trying to do was decide on which ice cream treat I wanted. Yet every time I went into that store no matter how fast I made my purchase or what I purchased, she followed me around the store [...]
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You Were Made For This
Two beautiful weekends in a row: Last weekend I helped to usher my grandmother into the leg of the Journey she gets to take with the ancestors. Sure I'll miss her, never stop loving her, but I know she was made to make me the woman I am; to give me (and really all of [...]
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Vietnam: The Black Man’s Fight?
Dr. Martin Luther King called the Vietnam Conflict (or War depending on who you ask), a "white man's war" and a "black man's fight." Inasmuch as race is a facet of class (according to me), I might be more inclined to name it the "poor man's fight" with an understanding that "poor" by definition in [...]
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Albert Einstein: Physicist. Genius. Race Man?
It is no secret that J. Edgar Hoover’s F.B.I. kept surreptitious files on individuals and groups considered to be threats to the country’s security—that is, the status quo of have and have-nots. That “security” would be maintained at all costs—lies and murders were not above the measures taken. Among those in the files were African [...]
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Know Samuel Yette? Now You Do.
Samuel F. Yette, 81, a journalist, author and educator who became an influential and sometimes incendiary voice on civil rights, died Jan. 21 at the Morningside House assisted-living facility in Laurel. He had Alzheimer's disease. In a career spanning six decades, Mr. Yette (pronounced "Yet") worked for many news organizations and government agencies and held [...]
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Wonder Woman: Henrietta Lacks
We have so many Michaels in my family they all have to have handles of some kind--Little Mike, Big Mike, Michael Nicholas. This comes from the youngest of those three: Michael Nicholas. (Thanks Mike!) It's the story of Henrietta Lacks, whose cells were cultured by George Otto Gey to create an immortal cell line for [...]
darlene anita scott 