Ma Rainey was an outlaw. Under her mask of makeup and wanton dress, this is how she is played, by Viola Davis, in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. A double-entendre if ever there was one. Lucky for me, I watched Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom the same week I viewed Tyler Perry’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide, When… Continue reading
Georgia, Georgia
My friend, the wise African novelist, Ayi Kwei Armah, wrote a novel titled The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born. But here they are. In Georgia. A state endearing enough and brave enough to have its own song. Vote. If the lines are super long, hum. Armah also wrote another novel called Two Thousand Seasons… Continue reading
Stories are medicine. Now is a perfect time to self-medicate. ~AW
Las historias son medicina. Ahora es el momento perfecto para automedicarse. ~ AW
“I may not get there with you.”* Voting for Those Who Could Not: Standing With Those Who Know
For Stacy Abrams, Raphael Warnock, and Jon Ossoff
©2020 by Alice Walker
The Promised Land
Is the sound
From the Mountain Top
Of all our ancestors
Cheering us on.
If it is a place,
it is made
both of stubbornness
and soul.
A destination
That always… Continue reading
I Have Married
© 2020 by Alice Walker
I have married
Nature
My first Love
And we
Are happy.
*
Dying
At last
Nothing
Between us.
Me he casado
© 2020 por Alice Walker
Me he casado
Naturaleza
Mi primer amor
Y nosotros
Son felices.
*
En el último
Moribundo
Dejando ir
Nada
Entre nosotros.
***
Conocí a John Trudell después que había muerto
Watch on Amazon Prime
I met John Trudell after he had died.That was how he described himself at that time. His family had been killed; his beloved wife, Tina, had been pregnant. He was away in Washington D.C., at the time, trying to make the US government honor a treaty, which, as far as I know, it never… Continue reading