When I was a little girl, I was driving in the car with my mother and one of Nikki Giovanni's song/poems came on the radio (I know, right? A time when radio stations had the autonomy to play poetry, r&b, rock, soul, the whole side of an album, or whatever tickled the DJ's fancy). It said something about feeling like a cow chosen by Carnation every time she was kissed on that spot behind her knee. My mother smiled a funny way that suggested she had felt that kinda way. I remember thinking why would anybody kiss your knees? (I get it now and could do with some knee kissing myself. Check out the poem here.).
I went to hear Ms. Giovanni speak last night.The thing I like about her is that she has lived until she has exactly zero fucks to give. Like many who came of age in the Sixties, she is a race woman and unapologetic about being so. She said if she were to be sent somewhere outside this universe and she could only take one person, she'd take a Negro because we're good people, fun, friendly and we'd find a way to get along (She used Negro, Black, and Colored interchangeably and if you grew up with those words like she did, I think you should).
At first, I found myself getting anxious for the white people in the audience. But, in retrospect, I see what she was doing. She was letting Black people exist in a space not defined by whites. She has amassed enough power to flip the usual dynamic on its head and let them be the outsiders who monitor their behavior around "the other." I had been angry--I mean like Mercury-is-in-fucking-retrograde angry--for two days from not having a space to be myself in and a combination of crying, praying, and sitting in Nikki's presence released that from me.
What I love, love, love about her is that, though she creates space for us to be us, she loved us too much to let us stay us (you don't hear me!). She subtly challenged homophobia in the Black community, even calling out T.D. Jakes. She did that. In the Warrensville Public Library. And those good Christian Deltas just oo-ooped her and didn't say a word, (hush now.)
I bought her books Chasing Utopia ( Utopia is a beer, not a society) and On My Journey Now.
No comments:
Post a Comment