Browse Topics
Race
From Yale To Jail
For no reason I can explain, I began to discover how little it matters where you are or what anyone does to you. I was sure that what I had done to get put in the hole was right, and somehow the longer I was there the better I felt.
October 1993Storm
It was too hot to do anything except wait for the heat to end, wait for rain. Wait on the red brick porch, down at the end of our street where the road made a wide, looping turn, disappearing into a tangled mess of kudzu vines.
September 1993Uncle Ruff
I was not hallucinating. Here was time incarnate, bareheaded, wrapped in heavy bib overalls and flannel, and moving in a lithe, short-stepping dance about the concrete ramp.
August 1993Stepbrothers
Gays And The Men’s Movement
White male privilege isn’t confined to those who own banks, control empires, and manipulate governments. Even the freakiest-looking punk-rock anarchist is only a haircut and a costume change away from enjoying a white male privilege black men will never know.
May 1993Victory
In their letter to the weekly newspaper, the Klan hadn’t said what time they planned to arrive, just that on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination they would be in Churchill passing out literature and demonstrating. When I called around town to find out what people were planning to do about it, the consensus in the white community was that we should ignore them.
April 1993Race
The carpenters, The Supremes, the flowering vine planted at the base of a cross
April 1993Small Favors
I started using carry-out at the grocery store when I got pregnant. Even when I could still lift the bags, I decided not to. Having put off pregnancy until forty, I didn’t want to take any risks. After a month or two, Cao showed up. He looked Vietnamese, his black hair slicked back, new-employee shiny. At first I didn’t care who carried my groceries, but then I started lining up for the registers he worked. Cao made the extra effort.
January 1993Poor And Poorer
Growing Up In The Projects
The endless rows of cramped units were designed to house the maximum number of people in the smallest, most underdeveloped side of town. Most families were black. There were only two categories — the poor but not yet without hope, and the poor without any hope.
August 1992Enemies
Shifting into gear and ramming a garbage can into the wall, buying a house together, playing apple-war games
October 1991In My Father’s Arms
My keeper hurled me into the hole, and jumped in after me. She pulled the floorboards back into place, over our heads, and we were engulfed in darkness as the hammering against the front door started. I tried to call out, but her thick arm snaked around my chest, and her calloused palm clamped over my mouth, as the sound of wood splintering, and then crashing, exploded all around us.
July 1991
