"Like The Women in my family, The Women in yours probably had the same formula in mind when they were growing us. You and I were born in the same month of the same year, groomed and molded by similar forces: warm hands, church, rules, hip-hop. Had you been given the chance to grow up, you would’ve probably discovered, like I did, those forces barely compare to the ones that shapeshift Black girls like us into less generous images."
This tale of two schools is not a metaphor; not symbol or parable. It is an example of how history is systemically erased in this country. While many complain that this is a new practice of the current administration, it's not. It's a tale as old as the history of the American project. Take only part of the story and you have rewritten it. It is no longer the same story.
So-called Black love...necessarily invents itself against the backdrop of legal and extra-legal exploitation of Black people that could reasonably disrupt intimacy except that Black people make choices... for Black people intimacy is not painless and is one of the most profound yet mundane aspects of our lives.
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
What is white space that is not a canvas; offering agency and every possibility to whomever confronts it? It’s quiet and patient; generous; never pompous and clearly not greedy. It lets you shine against it.
Talking to myself--especially when it becomes a lot of talk all of a sudden, always tells me there is something I'm trying to work out of my brain and especially out of my body. It's interesting that I haven't been able to run lately, one of my choice ways of working stuff out of my mind and body.
I have two things for sure in this world--faith and voice and I feel responsible for using them
The training, racing, and creative process...is a triumph over the physical and psychic conditions just outside the parameters of control which would censor and stilt performance.
Trust me, I am not hiding anything in my art, my writing most specifically, any more than when it was layered in imagery. It is all there. Pause in the white space and you’ll see that you get it after all. Okay so maybe I would rather people not pause because that art is my heart and soul on Front Street
I'll be on a panel called "Written By Ourselves: The Craft of Immobile Corporeality" on Friday, April 1 at 12 noon (Rm. 51o of the L.A. Convention Center). Stop by and hear me talk about the lovers of Jonestown and how they use the stillness of intimacy in defiance of their circumstances in that Guyana [...]
darlene anita scott 