When Am I Happy And

For A Long Time I Was Convinced That The Conflict Between Jewish People And Black People In This Country Was A Media Event.

This Word "love" - Discredited, "clicheed" - Can Be Restored And Love, The Instinct, The Impulse To Care For Somebody In The Hope That Somebody Will Care For You - Plus Our Language, The Language, A Language - Is About All We Have. With Everything Else Going On, This Is What Makes Us, What Keeps Us Human.

Most Of The Really Good Literature I've Read In My Life Was Political, Meaning It Was Important - About Something Going On In The History Of The World - Or Contemporary.

It's Always Seemed To Me That Black People's Grace Has Been With What They Do With Language. In Lorrain, Ohio, When I Was A Child, I Went To School With And Heard The Stories Of Mexicans, Italians, And Greeks, And I Listened. I Remember Their Language, And A Lot Of It Is Marvelous. But When I Think Of Things My Mother Or Father Or Aunts Used To Say, It Seems The Most Absolutely Striking Thing In The World.

And I Am All The Things I Have Ever Loved: Scuppernong Wine, Cool Baptisms In Silent Water, Dream Books And Number Playing.