On Their Way To Freedom, Some People

It Was Hollow, My Triumph, I Could Feel That, But I Held On To It Just The Same.

"race." I Really Can't Understand It As Anything Other Than Something People Say. The People Who Have Said That You And I Are Both "black" And Therefore Deserve A Certain Kind Of Interaction With The World, They Make Race. I Can't Take Them Seriously.

America Is Not So Much A Country As It Is An Idea, And That Must Be Why So Many People Are Drawn To It, The Idea Of It, The Idea That You Might Be Free Of Your Past, Free Of The Traditions That Kept You In Your Own Traditions - That Is The Idea Of It: Freedom From Your Very Own Self.

An Ugly Thing, That Is What You Are When You Become A Tourist, An Ugly, Empty Thing, A Stupid Thing, A Piece Of Rubbish Pausing Here And There To Gaze At This And Taste That, And It Will Never Occur To You That The People Who Inhabit The Place In Which You Have Just Paused Cannot Stand You.

I'm Writing Out Of Desperation. I Felt Compelled To Write To Make Sense Of It To Myself - So I Don't End Up Saying Peculiar Things Like 'i'm Black And I'm Proud.' I Write So I Don't End Up As A Set Of Slogans And Clichés.