One Must Learn How To

Instill Respect For Teachers.

You Can Say I Had A Severe Case Of 'roots' Envy. I Wanted To Be Like Alex Haley, And I Wanted To Be Able To... Do My Family Tree Back To The Slave Ship And Then Reverse The Middle Passage, As I Like To Put It, And Find The Tribe Or Ethnic Group That I Was From In Africa.

So, Mexico, Brazil, They Wanted Their National Culture To Be 'blackish' - Really Brown, A Beautiful Brown Blend. And Finally, I Discovered That In Each Of These Societies The People At The Bottom Are The Darkest Skinned With The Most African Features.

For As Long As I Can Remember, I Have Been Passionately Intrigued By 'africa,' By The Word Itself, By Its Flora And Fauna, Its Topographical Diversity And Grandeur; But Above All Else, By The Sheer Variety Of The Colors Of Its People, From Tan And Sepia To Jet And Ebony.

Color Categories Are On Steroids In Latin America. I Find That Fascinating. It's Very Difficult For Americans, Particularly African-americans To Understand Or Sympathize With.