This was my first time reading the poet Nikki Giovanni and I had no idea she was so witty and funny! I didn’t start off with a book of her poetry (which was probably my mistake), but rather this essay collection. And despite the inferences made from the title, this book didn’t address racism in the textbook/lecture way I thought it would. Instead, it took a much more personal approach, containing everything from her reflections on Toni Morrison’s entire body of work to anecdotes about her time spent as a professor at Virginia Tech. In short, this collection is the very definition of a mixed bag.
I admit the collection would probably be of more interest to someone who has already read and loved her work, but it felt too random, scattered, and unfocused to me—as if she were hopping around with no discernible direction. Some of her essays were only a page to a page and a half, a length I’m not entirely sure even justifies being called an essay. They seemed more like random thoughts just she decided to record one day and overall it felt very disjointed.
But the thing is, there actually are bits of wisdom buried among her long-winded, self-indulgent rants, if you care to dig for them. I have a tendency to go on for too long myself, so maybe I saw myself in her writing and didn’t like it, I don’t know. But it really bothered me that she repeats, verbatim, the exact same sentences over and over again throughout the book. Maybe she just didn’t realize she was doing it, but it seems more likely that the essays were written at different times and then compiled into a collection with no regard for editing out the redundancies. I probably wouldn’t have noticed as much had I not read them all in one go.
Moving on to things I actually did like: Giovanni states at multiple points that she’s a Trekkie and loves sci-fi—which, as a longtime Trekkie myself, I found instantly endearing. Giovanni is at her best when comparing first-generation black college students to their ancestors (“Pioneers: A Guide”), interviewing the first black woman to go to space (“Shooting for the Moon”), and providing sharp-tongued clapbacks to ignorant white queries in the title essay. I found her spirituality off-putting at times (there are multiple mentions of Jesus), but she still manages to paint you a clear, unapologetic picture of herself:
I am a Black American poet. I am female. I am, at this writing, forty-eight years old. I am a daughter, a mother, a professor of English. I like grilled rack of lamb and boiled corn on the cob… Silver Queen when I can get it. I like television and sports. I love bid whist. I smoke cigarettes and, should the occasion arise, will have a glass of red wine, preferably Merlot. I like my mother, my sister, my son, and my dogs. I will drink any hot, black liquid that someone will call coffee. I hate diet soda, seat belts, anti-smokers, pro-lifers, and stupid people who think they have any right to tell me how to live. I have no need to control anyone and will not be controlled. I believe that if I keep examining my life and what I think and feel, I will have added one, teeny, tiny bit of truth to this planet I call home.
Even without such detailed autobiographical description, her voice shines through the text. There’s a distinct possibility that she’s a better poet than essayist, so this definitely deserves a reread after I get around to some of her poetry. Racism 101 is extremely good in parts and very quotable; I just wish it had been more cohesive, with better paragraphing and a representative title.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
Notable Quotes:
Poetry
Shakespeare was a working artist.
How could he have known that five or six hundred years later he would be required reading? Should he have foreseen this possibility and tempered his judgments to match? Should not he have considered the possibility that his words would be difficult to read, and should he therefore have anticipated modern usage? Shouldn’t we hold him to the same standards as the Constitution and Bible and bring him “up to date”? I think not. I think we should leave him in the brilliance of his expression. We need, we modern artists and critics, to do exactly what Shakespeare did. Write for now. Think for now. Express ourselves in our best possible vernacular for now. Will we be remembered? I doubt it. Most people are not remembered. And most people who would remember the people are not remembered. We have no true concept of what “Homo sapien” has forgotten, thought surely some of it was good and some of it was useless. […]
I plant geraniums. No one will remember that. I have an allergy to tomato fuzz. No one will care. I write poetry and sometimes prose. No one will know me… let alone what I thought I did. But while I live, during this all too brief period between birth and death, my life and work have been meaningful to me.
All poetry is written in the vernacular. The olden poets wrote of and in their times. We must do the same. Will that mean some of our images are “That sucks”? I think so. Some will use “shitty,” some will say “motherfucker,” because that’s a part of our vernacular. Will it offend? You bet. But poets who don’t offend are not doing their job… There is no right or wrong… only what works and what doesn’t work for the poet and the poem.
Preachers, of course, only preach to the saved. Each Sunday in every church they may rail and rally against the sinners, but they are preaching to the saved. Folk sit in church and k-n-o-w, “We are not like them,” whoever them are. Up to and including, I should imagine, Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, snake handlers, holy rollers, and any other segment of their own religion, let alone Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, voodoo, animism, and other beliefs far different. Opera singers only sing to those who come to the opera. Certainly there are operas on radio and, occasionally, television, but let a good ol’ boy hit Aida by mistake and watch that dial turn like a rabbit seeing a dog in the field. Quick. Poets are like that, too. We are listened to and read only by people who like poetry… I have wondered why poets get into these petty quarrels when there are so very few of us and even fewer folk who care what we think.
I believe their responsibility as writers is to have as much sympathy for the rich as for the poor; as much pity for the beautiful as for the ugly; as much interest in the mundane as the exotic. Meatloaf is a wonderful thing as worthy of a poem as any spring day or heroic deed.
Blackness
I don’t owe these people any great affection or loyalty. They do not love me or mine. That, by that way, means I live in a narrow world. Well, maybe not so narrow. Maybe a more accurate way of looking at it is that I will not have my world nor my worth determined by people who mean me ill…. I do not measure my soul by the tape of the white world.
Style has profound meaning to Black Americans. If we can’t drive, we will invent walks and the world will envy the dexterity of our feet. If we can’t have ham, we will boil chitterlings; if we are given rotten peaches, we will make cobblers; if given scraps, we will make quilts; take away our drums, and we will clap our hands. We prove the human spirit will prevail. We take what we have to make what we need.
When the black community claims the white community is waging war against us, the white community replies, “You are killing yourself.” Yet the young men in the streets neither make nor import the drugs or guns.
Space
…the ultimate genius of Star Trek, Uhura, a Black woman who was the voice of the entire Federation. Toni Morrison once wrote: “The Black woman is both a ship and a safe harbor.” Uhura proved that. Of all the possible voices to send into space, the voice of the Black woman was chosen. Why? Because no matter what the words, the voice gives comfort and welcome. The Black woman’s voice sings the best notes of which earthlings are capable. Hers is the one voice that suggests the possibility of harmony on planet earth.
“Tell me,” I bravely asked, “about your frog experiment.” “We wanted to know,” Jemison said, “how the tadpoles would develop in space, with no gravity. I hatched the eggs and developed the tadpoles. They showed no ill effects, and since frogs, like other life forms, take so much of their basic knowledge from their environment, we were curious if they would hear well, if they would turn out to be… well, normal frogs. When we got back to earth, the tadpoles were right on track and they have turned into frogs.”
Now I got to ask an intelligent question: “If most of the learning of, for example, frogs is genetic, then won’t it be the second generation which will show the effects of the trip, not the first? If, in other words, there is a mutation taking place, won’t we have to wait at least until the next generation before we see the effects?”
But what I—and I suspect, she—was most interested in is, How can space technology help us? If the second-generation frog shows some mutation that is the result of being born in space, what will this tell us about the second generation being born in, for example, slavery or the second generation that is homeless or the fifth generation being born into a racist world? Will the mutations be aberrant, or will they be the logical adjustment to a foreign, untoward pressure? And can we ever be the same once such a change has taken place?
I’m not big on the idea of aliens who always seem to want to destroy earth and earthlings. It’s almost laughable that the most destructive force in the known universe, humankind, always fears something is out there trying to get us.
Feminism
European male, African male, Asian male, all sought freedom from women. All consider women inferior. All fear the power of the vagina. Freud was wrong. There is no penis envy; there is vaginal envy. The penis, no matter what the myth, is an entity. The vagina is a space. It knows no boundary. I have never had difficulty with the story of Adam and Eve because I have never believed it. Any snake in that garden had to be connected to Adam. It was not knowledge but carnal knowledge that Adam forced upon Ever that caused the troubles. The uncoiled snake was somewhere south of Adam’s belly button.
Marriage is not a female institution because it does so little good for women. It labels women outside the institution witches, who are then ripe for burning. Whores who are then ripe for sexual exploitation. It labels the women outside the institution dykes who are then ripe for hating. And with such hateful options facing women, it makes any male better than none…. If Susan Brownmiller was right that “all men benefit from rape,” it is certainly clear that all men benefit from both the ideal and the institution of marriage. A woman should belong to somebody. She is a prize to be won, spoils to be taken, a concubine to be visited.
She Wants the Diction 