Miss Boston Says...

Musings of a thirty-something, from the Republic of Brooklyn to the Ivory Tower

[missbostonsays]

Jamea Richmond-Edwards, "This Water Runs Deep" (2022)

[corporationsarepeople]

“Today was truly a microcosm of U.S. history: Black and allied movements showing the promise of a fully realized democracy, followed up by extremely predictable white backlash, and ending with the ruling elites feigning innocence.” via @atboston on twitter

[missbostonsays]

"I am not sad that Black Americans are rebelling; this was not only inevitable but eminently desirable. Without this magnificent ferment among Negroes, the old evasions and procrastinations would have continued indefinitely. Black men have slammed the door shut on a past of deadening passivity. Except for the Reconstruction years, they have never in their long history on American soil struggled with such creativity and courage for their freedom. These are our bright years of emergence; though they are painful ones, they cannot be avoided. . . .

In these trying circumstances, the Black revolution is much more than a struggle for the rights of Negroes. It is forcing America to face all its interrelated flaws—racism, poverty, militarism, and materialism. It is exposing evils that are rooted deeply in the whole structure of our society. It reveals systemic rather than superficial flaws and suggests that radical reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced. . . . Today's dissenters tell the complacent majority that the time has come when further evasion of social responsibility in a turbulent world will court disaster and death. America has not yet changed because so many think it need not change, but this is the illusion of the damned. America must change because twenty-three million black citizens will no longer live supinely in a wretched past. They have left the valley of despair; they have found strength in struggle. Joined by white allies, they will shake the prison walls until they fall. America must change."

--- Martin Luther King, Jr., "A Testament of Hope," 1969

[missbostonsays]

you. not wanting me. was the beginning of me wanting myself. thank you.

"the hurt" by Nayyirah Waheed

[missbostonsays]

“I am America. I am the part you won’t recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky, my name not yours. My religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.”

RIP Muhammad Ali, 1942-2016

[missbostonsays]

We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it doesn’t matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. . . If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn’t matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves.

Langston Hughes in “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain”

[missbostonsays]

[brooklynsflower]

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[sharaisuperstar]

My love is too delicate to have thrown back on my face. My love is too beautiful to have thrown back on my face. My love is too sanctified to have thrown back on my face. My love is too magic to have thrown back on my face. My love is too Saturday nite to have thrown back on my face. My love is too complicated to have thrown back on my face. My love is too music to have thrown back on my face.

Ntozake Shange in For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf (via sharaisuperstar)

[moma]

Jacob Lawrence, born today in 1917, worked on all 60 panels of his iconic Migration Series at once. 

[Jacob Lawrence. In the North the Negro had better educational facilities. 1940-41]

[muuuuuuusic]

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[missbostonsays]

Love is not a meritocracy, and those who claim it for the meritorious are wrong. Love is simple in its devastation. The wings it gives us are strapped on with leather bands that cut into the flesh if the breeze doesn’t blow just right and the great wings are thrown back against the air like insidious umbrellas and the filaments of pain are incandescent and love tears tears from the dryeyed and the Stoic and makes women mad.

From “Book Review” by Lucinda H. Roy

[missbostonsays]

"Anacostia, D.C. Frederick Douglass housing project. A dance group" by Gordon Parks

[whoisaj-deactivated20160113]

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[missbostonsays]

There’s so much more to life than finding someone who will want you, or being sad over someone who doesn’t. There’s a lot of wonderful time to be spent discovering yourself without hoping someone will fall in love with you along the way, and it doesn’t need to be painful or empty. You need to fill yourself up with love. Not anyone else. Become a whole being on your own. Go on adventures, fall asleep in the woods with friends, wander around the city at night, sit in a coffee shop on your own, write on bathroom stalls, leave notes in library books, dress up for yourself, give to others, smile a lot. Do all things with love, but don’t romanticize life like you can’t survive without it. Live for yourself and be happy on your own. It isn’t any less beautiful, I promise.

Emery Allen

[missbostonsays]

"Sweet Thang" by Barkley L. Hendricks

[aht-aht]

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