To Believe Is To Become What You

As A Poet And Writer, I Deeply Love And I Deeply Hate Words.

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.

In America, The Traditional Routes To Black Identity Have Hardly Been Normal. Suicide (disappearance By Imitation, Or Willed Extinction), Violence (hysterical Religiosity, Crime, Armed Revolt), And Exemplary Moral Courage; None Of These Is Normal.

The Music Of Language Became Extremely Important To Me, And Obvious To Me. By The Time I Was Seven I Was Writing Myself. I Was A Poet

Anytime You See White Men Suppose To Fight Each Other An You Not White, Well You Know You Got Trouble, Because They Blah-blah Loud About Democrat Or Republican An They Huffing An Puff About Democracy Someplace Else But Relentless, See, The Deal Come Down Evil On Somebody Don Have No Shirt An Tie, Somebody Don Live In No Whiteman House No Whiteman Country.