Denmark Vesey On "What Is Black?"

Although quite often I don't see QUITE where Denmark Vesey is coming from, today he wrote a really good one.

If nothing else, I'm hoping it will help straighten out The Dean.

Of course when I re-print stuff like this and try to wear Malcolm X ties, Mrs. Axinar starts on her, "Don't act like you down ..."

But here goes (with just a few Axinarian adaptations for style :) ):

There is no such thing as race.

The moment you play that game, you fall into psychological quicksand. The harder you struggle, the faster you drown. So, your brotha is going to drop a rope down and give you a chance to pull yourself out.

Black is not a color.

Black is crossover, baseline and clap boards.

Black is Denzel's walk.

Black is Bob Marley dancing to Get Up Stand UP.

Black is Claude McKay: "If we must die, let us die like men."

Black is your grandmother humming "Mary Don't You Weep" while rubbing Vicks on your chest when you are 6 years old and sick.

Black is "I'm going to kill this motherfucker if he puts his hands on me."

Black crossed the Atlantic in the bottom of slave ships and 300 years later pimped so hard, it dragged it's mink on the floor.

Black is why 100 million mesmerized people, watch 10 brothas defy gravity on a court for 48 minutes, night after night.

Black is the audacity to build tombs in the shape of pyramids perfectly aligned with celestial objects, that last 5,000 years.

Black has the middle name "Hussein" and still moon-walks into a post 9/11 White House.

Aint no "system" Supreme to black.

There's some men who look like Leon Spinks ain't a bit more black than Conan O'Brien.

There's some men look like Marlon Brando, blacker than James Brown.

And I'm STILL the blackest man in America.

Cuz I say so.