I Write A Lot In My Head.

I'm Writing Out Of Desperation. I Felt Compelled To Write To Make Sense Of It To Myself - So I Don't End Up Saying Peculiar Things Like 'i'm Black And I'm Proud.' I Write So I Don't End Up As A Set Of Slogans And Clichés.

The Strange Thing About My Life Is That I Came To America At About The Time When Racial Attitudes Were Changing. This Was A Big Help To Me. Also, The People Who Were Most Cruel To Me When I First Came To America Were Black Americans. They Made Absolute Fun Of The Way I Talked, The Way I Dressed. I Couldn't Dance. The People Who Were Most Kind And Loving To Me Were White People. So What Can One Make Of That? Perhaps It Was A Coincidence That All The People Who Found Me Strange Were Black And All The People Who Didn't Were White.

At The Time I Was Taught To Read, It Was An Eden-like Time Of My Life. My Mother Adored Me. Everyone Adored Me. So I Associate Reading With Enormous Pleasure.

What I Really Want To Write About Is Injustice And Justice, And The Different Ways Human Beings Organize The Two.

It's Very Funny, American Society: White Culture Can Do All Sorts Of Things And Get Away With It, But The Minute A Black Person Does It, It's Interpreted In Some Way.