A Quote by Ntozake Shange
I remember that my mother used to take me to see ballets, especially if there were black people in them.
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My father never cheated on my mother. He used to cheat on me. He used to pick other kids after school. Take them to the zoo. Take them to play ball. One day he came to me. He says, Look I got to level with you. I met another kid.
My daughter teases me once in a while saying, Remember when you used to be my mother and you had black hair?
If I look back, my mother was always out. I can remember the perfume and her scarlet chiffon dress and crystal beads, going to a party. She used to play her violin at restaurants later on in life and at old people's homes. She loved the races, which she used to take me to as a child: our carpets were bought with her winnings. Loved her chickens.
For black people who are really dark - and a lot of black people were averse to be dark skinned - it was believed that you'd be so dark that you couldn't see them at night unless they were smiling or you could see the whites of their eyes. At one time, it was a sharp comic barb that got levelled at some people.
I remember when someone told me phones were going to have cameras on them, and I thought that was the dumbest idea I'd ever heard. Why would you want a camera on your phone? But as we see the impact of it, it has allowed for a mass verification of what black people have been saying.
Sometimes I feel as if sections of my ballets were done for me - that I didn't do them myself.
My oldest brother used to take me to the theater. The first play he took me to see was 'Black Comedy,' then he took me to see 'Butley.' We'd see all these British plays. And 'Hello, Dolly,' with Pearl Bailey. I was unconsciously thinking, 'Gee, I would love to be able to do that.'
I would say I'm black because my parents said I'm black. I'm black because my mother's black. I'm black because I grew up in a family of all black people. I knew I was black because I grew up in an all-white neighborhood. And my parents, as part of their protective mechanisms that they were going to give to us, made it very clear what we were.
Sometimes I feel as if sections of my ballets were done for me - that I didnt do them myself.
If to take up books were to take them in, and if to see them were to consider them, and to run through them were to grasp them, I should be wrong to make myself out quite as ignorant as I say I am.
White people's fear of Black people with guns will never cease to amaze me. Probably it's because they think about what they would do were they in our place. Especially the police, who have done so much dirt to Black people - their guilty conscience tells them to be afraid. When Black people seriously organize and take up arms to fight for our liberation, there will be a lot of white people who will drop dead from no other reason than their own guilt and fear.
I have two paintings that used to belong to my grandmother, who lived in Chicago. When I was young, I used to sleep over at her house. They came to me when she passed away. I remember looking at them when I was a girl, and now, every time I see them, I feel good.
It's always seemed to me that black people's grace has been with what they do with language. In Lorrain, Ohio, when I was a child, I went to school with and heard the stories of Mexicans, Italians, and Greeks, and I listened. I remember their language, and a lot of it is marvelous. But when I think of things my mother or father or aunts used to say, it seems the most absolutely striking thing in the world.
I was called "T-Bow" but the people got it mixed up with "T-Bone." My name is Aaron Walker but "T-Bone" is catchy, people remember it. My auntie gave it to me when I was a kid. Mother's mother was a Cherokee Indian full blooded. There were sixteen girls and two boys in my mother's family, all dead but two.
For my own children, I do want for them to look back and remember that it was me in the kitchen, that I was doing the packed lunches, that we were there on the school run, that we did take a bus. I want them to remember those things, because those are the things that I remember from my own childhood and that have been incredibly important to me.
I just remember one girl really getting me on the field and beating the holy crap out of me. I never to this day know why. And then people used to be funny because we were on welfare. People used to make fun of you. But I used to get school dinners so I thought it was great, I got a hot meal every day.
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