Greenbelt Knollsters aspired to a purer level of openness. It's absurd to think we were perfect. You may think you were. I certainly wasn't. Take this example. As a hyperLib I used to think blacks like Louie Armstrong and Langston Hughes were not "black" enough.
At the First World Negro Arts Festival in Dakar, Senegal, I was having drinks with Wole Soyinka and Langston Hughes. As I smugly thought to myself how "White" Hughes was, he opened a new book of Leroi Jones--to tout him to Wole, Nigeria's Nobel Laureate, as the fresh new hope of Black American Lit.
I blushed silently. And learned then to not pretend to be more "black" than I really was!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment