Deontae

“It's a nice big fat philosophical question, about: how do you get through? Sometimes you don't survive whole, you just survive in part. But the grandeur of life is that attempt. It's not about that solution. It is about being as fearless as one can, and behaving as beautifully as one can, under completely impossible circumstances. It's that, that makes it elegant. Good is just more interesting, more complex, more demanding. Evil is silly, it may be horrible, but at the same time it's not a compelling idea. It's predictable. It needs a tuxedo, it needs a headline, it needs blood, it needs fingernails. It needs all that costume in order to get anybody's attention. But the opposite, which is survival, blossoming, endurance, those things are just more compelling intellectually if not spiritually, and they certainly are spiritually. This is a more fascinating job. We are already born, we are going to die. So you have to do something interesting that you respect in between.”
― Toni Morrison

“For here you were, Big James, named for me—you were a big baby, I was not—here you were, to be loved. To be loved, baby, hard, at once, and forever, to strengthen you against the loveless world.”
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

“What kind of justice is this?
Where the poor go to prison and the rich go free.
Where witnesses are rented, bought, or bribed.
Where people are tried not because of any criminal actions but because of their political beliefs.”
― Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography

“you see, my whole life
is tied up
to unhappiness
it's father cooking breakfast
and me getting fat as a hog
or having no food
at all and father proving
his incompetence
again
i wish i knew how it would feel
to be free
it's having a job
they won't let you work
or no work at all
castrating me
(yes it happens to women too)

it's a sex object if you're pretty
and no love
or love and no sex if you're fat
get back fat black woman be a mother
grandmother strong thing but not woman
gameswoman romantic woman love needer
man seeker dick eater sweat getter
fuck needing love seeking woman

it's a hole in your shoe
and buying lil sis a dress
and her saying you shouldn't
when you know
all too well that you shouldn't

but smiles are only something we give
to properly dressed social workers
not each other
only smiles of i know
your game sister
which isn't really
a smile

joy is finding a pregnant roach
and squashing it
not finding someone to hold
let go get off get back don't turn
me on you black dog
how dare you care
about me
you ain't go no good sense
cause i ain't shit you must be lower
than that to care

it's a filthy house
with yesterday's watermelon
and monday's tears
cause true ladies don't
know how to clean

it's intellectual devastation
of everybody
to avoid emotional commitment
"yeah honey i would've married
him but he didn't have no degree"

it's knock-kneed mini skirted
wig wearing died blond mamma's scar
born dead my scorn your whore
rough heeeled broken nailed powdered
face me
whose whole life is tied
up to unhappiness
cause it's the only
for real thing
i
know”
― Nikki Giovanni