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Betsey Brown QUOTES

Betsey Brown QUOTES

1 " A child had a right to be a child. Even in Mississippi a girl was a girl till her time came. White folks or no white folks. Nobody sent a little ol’ thing out to take up for the whole damn race. "

― Ntozake Shange , Betsey Brown

2 " The pedicure Regina executed herself. She wanted Betsey to feel relaxed and cared about. The way all little Negro girls should feel. Not cramped or out of place, or funny-looking or easy. Just lovely and well-loved. "

― Ntozake Shange , Betsey Brown

3 " What ever was she going to do? She took the emery boards from the top left drawer and started doing her nails. She was going to play bridge, but before she did that she was going to have a scotch and soda and play a game of solitaire with the prettiest hands a woman with this many problems could have. "

― Ntozake Shange , Betsey Brown

4 " Maybe Jane was right. Maybe he was wrong to have filled her head with tales of Bessie Smith and Josephine Baker, let alone take her to see Jackie Wilson, Etta James, Tina Turner and the Ikettes. Maybe it wasn’t right to wake up to Chico Hamilton, Lee Morgan, Charlie Parker, and Art Blakey in the morning. Watch the sunset with Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor, and Little Willie John. But Greer didn’t know what else to offer that was beautiful and colored and alive, all at the same time. "

― Ntozake Shange , Betsey Brown

5 " Love kisses were the best kind. There was no denying that a kiss from someone you loved was different from any other kind of kiss and should be studied up on and looked at carefully, so you could recognize it when love came down on you. That’s what love did. It came down on you like rain or sunshine. "

― Ntozake Shange , Betsey Brown

6 " Jane didn’t miss white folks, she didn’t like white folks, she tried not to think about them. She kept her world as colored as she could. There was enough of it. From Langston Hughes to Sojourner Truth, her children’s worlds were hardly deprived "

― Ntozake Shange , Betsey Brown

7 " This was one night she would see all the stars and the moon as the sun rose, when there was that peculiar mingling of past and tomorrows, when the sun glanced cross the sky to the moon hoverin over the telephone wires, and everyone else was ignorant of the powers of light and the dark. "

― Ntozake Shange , Betsey Brown

8 " The street was vacant. Like a big old movie set. Nothing. Nobody to do a thing with. What could she do alone? Better yet, what could she do alone that could exclude the white folks, who were nowhere to be seen except in her wounds and aches of memories. Betsey decided to play hop-scotch, but she laid the hop-scotch pattern out with enough room to write “For Colored Only,” “Crackers and Dogs Not Allowed,” “Peckerwoods Got No Welcome Here,” “Guineas Go Home.” Betsey’s hop-scotch was something to behold. Chalk never seemed so powerful as when it messed with white folks. "

― Ntozake Shange , Betsey Brown