The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
–Maya Angelou
So, how do you make a little black girl believe that all she has gone through does not determine her ability to take flight? How do you “teach” her that her wings are beautiful and that the risk of flying is a marvelous growth enriching endeavor? How do you make her see that her cadged song and flight will one day inspire others to freedom? How do you “teach” a black girl to fly?
You see, it’s not an easy endeavor because so many things seek to clip their wings, silence their voice, and keep them cadged. It takes a special kind of spiritual intervention to release little black birds. It is not a task for the faint of heart or for those who benevolently (i.e. good white women) “swoop” in to save de Negro children from the pathology of their colored communities. Hmmmm . . . it is a task well suited for wise black women like Baby Suggs in Beloved who said, “Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it . . . No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my people they do not love your hands. Those they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. 
Love your hands . . . You got to love it,” and Minnie Ransom in The Salt Eaters who said, “Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well? Just so’s you’re sure, sweetheart, and ready to be healed, cause wholeness is no trifling matter. A lot of weight when you’re well,” and my 8th grade colored school teacher, Mrs. LaVern Colvin, who said, “Now listen here, Fallon, if you do not know by now how much I love you . . . you will never know, dearie.”
Well, I’m glad you asked young grass hopper. Webster defines it as someone who predicts the future or as someone who speaks powerful insights. Perhaps, at one point 
Yep, to say the least the speech did feel quite underwhelming and non-surprising . . . “we’re going to [fill in the blank with your best conception of democracy]” knowing that the actual end result will not liberate the many inequalities communities of color endure. Therefore, I turned my attention to the First Lady, Michelle Obama, who was dressed in a very conservative plum dress that seemed more reminiscent of a Stepford wife than a woman who was Vice President of Community and External Affairs at the University of Chicago.
like Jordan Sparks’ and Chris Brown’s ballad[ized] (yes, I made up a word) “I can’t breathe without you . . . no air?” Or is it more like falling into Kurt Ellings’ Leaving Again, In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning.
greatly by keeping Haiti in debt.
green mountains and its sparkling blue beaches. There is something special about this place that makes me want to be less troll-like to people who attempt to break my camel’s back or who attempt to pull my last nerve. Indeed, Hawaii is a special place. Perhaps, it has something to do with the bounty of green vegetation that encircles the island. And given that I grew up in an inner city, went to school in an inner city, and probably will die in an inner city, seeing the abundance of fauna and flora is simultaneously breathtaking and a little disturbing as well.
bit dramatic, but it’s the best phrase I can conjure up to use while struggling with jet lag. Also, Hawaii is a metaphor for talking about privilege. Well, even though my going to Hawaii was based on my services of being a part-time grad school nanny. It still feels like a privileged state because I did not have to pay for anything. Furthermore, the child was extremely well-behaved and I had an abundance of time to explore Hawaii. So, to say the least I felt inner turmoil about being in Hawaii when so many in my family struggles to keep their heads above water.
I cannot go to a movie like Avatar and not see how the white’s imagination pictures itself as both conqueror and savior. And of course for the multinational corporation in the movie Avatar conquering was an act of saving the “blue monkeys, (i.e. the indigenous people in Avatar) from their non-technological inferior people of color ways. To put it simply, I hated the movie. It ain’t original just watch any movie by Mel Gibson or Tom Cruise.