I'm convinced.

I don't think that human beings are meant to eat lentils. The only time I can say that I like the taste of them is when it is completely obscured by other things in the dish. (That's not really the taste of the lentils then, is it?, you say. I agree.)

"Most negroes are natural valets and hair-dressers; taking to the comb and brush congenially as to the castinets, and flourishing them apparently with almost equal satisfaction."*

I get angry when I read this book. I don't like the words, the phrases, the opinions that are in it.
I exclaimed, after having read one of these such statements, "When are we going to read something that makes white people uncomfortable?" Then I realized that, if you are a reasonable person, racism will make you uncomfortable so race does not matter. In fact, I hope it makes your blood boil. But man! study one part of English literature history and you'll be bombarded by tales of slavery, slave narratives, slave ships, the slave passage, emancipation, civil war, etc. etc. etc. I wish it could be turned around on some other race some time. I don't mean that how it sounds. I wish there were no other occurence in the history of the world that could compare to African slavery but there probably is. I just... I want to see what it's like from the other side of the fence.
I sit in class, expecting to be defensive, partly because that's my nature (oft to my detriment) and partly because I don't think anyone else will be. This becomes more obvious to me in Guelph where I am usually either the only black person in the class or one of 2, 3, 4 (in a room full of anywhere from 20 to 200). I wish I didn't need to have this assumed connection or empathy that set my reaction apart from anyone else's. I wish I didn't feel the need to be a spokesperson like this because nobody else gets it. To you it's a sad story; to me it's a personal history.

What better way to end a post than with an old piece of creative writing?

Geneology

whips lay you open, the oil slick strips take your cries.
keep the wild; don't be broken. stay homeland in your eyes.

your no rights, no lefts, a dead Mother Voice; no mother's choice.

anger rises and becomes, is taught to hide; faces get older.
fighting past done for people unnamed, unmade yet.

take no shame, little sister, your hurt will fleet, strength arrives.

bond, bind, teach through trials, remain, sustain, continue, bide.
still worth something, still tag-less, be above, head high, be more.

The air - through which the lash whistles,
where lost cargo is thrown before water,
where manacles rattle, where hypocrisy drawls out,
where screams drive and penetrate,
where blood spatters - is the air I breathe.

I have no chains.
(19/08/05)

*p 170 Benito Cereno, Herman Melville. Melville's Short Novels, (c) 2002 by W. W. Norton and Company