That A Little Child Will Lead Us

All Of Western Tradition, From The Late Bloom Of The British Empire Right Through The Early Doom Of Vietnam, Dictates That You Do Something Spectacular And Irreversible Whenever You Find Yourself In Or Whenever You Impose Yourself Upon A Wholly Unfamiliar Situation Belonging To Somebody Else. Frequently It's Your Soul Or Your Honor Or Your Manhood, Or Democracy Itself, At Stake.

As A Poet And Writer, I Deeply Love And I Deeply Hate Words. I Love The Infinite Evidence And Change And Requirements And Possibilities Of Language; Every Human Use Of Words That Is Joyful, Or Honest Or New, Because Experience Is New... But As A Black Poet And Writer, I Hate Words That Cancel My Name And My History And The Freedom Of My Future: I Hate The Words That Condemn And Refuse The Language Of My People In America.

South Africa Used To Seem So Far Away. Then It Came Home To Me. It Began To Signify The Meaning Of White Hatred Here. That Was What The Sheets And The Suits And The Ties Covered Up, Not Very Well. That Was What The Cowardly Guys Calling Me Names From Their Speeding Truck Wanted To Happen To Me, To All Of Me: To My People. That Was What Would Happen To Me If I Walked Around The Corner Into The Wrong Neighborhood. That Was Birmingham. That Was Brooklyn. That Was Reagan. That Was The End Of Reason. South Africa Was How I Came To Understand That I Am Not Against War; I Am Against Losing The War.

Reproductive Choice Is Not Some Trendy Item To Toss Or Keep Around The House. If You Cannot Get An Education Or A Job, If You Cannot Choose What Will Or Will Not Happen With Your Own Body, Then What Freedom Do You Have?

I Am The History Of The Rejection Of Who I Am