Pearl Cleage: Feelings of a Very Light Negro as the Confrontation Approaches
Feelings of a Very Light Negro as the Confrontation Approaches
When it comes (and make no mistake— it’s coming) which way will I go?
Whose bullet will send my life choking and bubbling up from my chest in the filth of some unknown, but silently waiting, street? My pale skin and thin lips alienate me from my people. They are suspicious of my claim to blackness. They gaze into my pale blue eyes and they know that I have never danced naked and gleaming with sweat under a velvet African sky. But my soul screams against an alliance with you. I am Black inside myself and I hate you, for with your whiteness and your power you have destroyed me.