3
" You have a color of your own- Dark chocolate,
You have a culture your own- Hip pop,
You have a revival of your own- Harlem Renaissance,
You are the spot on a ladybug that adds its beauty,
You are the pupil of an eye,
You are the vastness of space,
You are the richness of soil,
You are the sweetness of dark chocolate,
You are the mystery in nature,
Blessed Black chocolate, God has made You to rule the Land, that made You a slave. "
―
9
" In 7.81 square miles of vaunted black community, the 850 square feet of Dum Dum Donuts was the only place in the " community" where one could experience the Latin root of the word, where a citizen could revel in common togetherness. So one rainy Sunday afternoon, not long after the tanks and media attention had left, my father ordered his usual. He sat at the table nearest the ATM and said aloud, to no one in particular, " Do you know that the average household net worth for whites is $113,149 per year, Hispanics $6,325, and black folks $5,677?" " For real?" " What's your source material, nigger?" " The Pew Research Center." Motherfuckers from Harvard to Harlem respect the Pew Research Center, and hearing this, the concerned patrons turned around in their squeaky plastic seats as best they could, given that donut shop swivel chairs swivel only six degrees in either direction. Pops politely asked the manager to dim the lights. I switched on the overhead projector, slid a transparency over the glass, and together we craned our necks toward the ceiling, where a bar graph titled " Income Disparity as Determined by Race" hovered overhead like some dark, damning, statistical cumulonimbus cloud threatening to rain on our collective parades." I was wondering what that li'l nigger was doing in a donut shop with a damn overhead projector. "