If You Are Free, You Are Not

I Am The History Of The Rejection Of Who I Am

As A Poet And Writer, I Deeply Love And I Deeply Hate Words. I Love The Infinite Evidence And Change And Requirements And Possibilities Of Language; Every Human Use Of Words That Is Joyful, Or Honest Or New, Because Experience Is New... But As A Black Poet And Writer, I Hate Words That Cancel My Name And My History And The Freedom Of My Future: I Hate The Words That Condemn And Refuse The Language Of My People In America.

As I Think About Anyone Or Anything -- Whether History Or Literature Or My Father Or Political Organizations Or A Poem Or A Film -- As I Seek To Evaluate The Potentiality, The Life-supportive Commitment And Possibilities Of Anyone Or Any Thing, The Decisive Question Is Always Where Is The Love?

The Courts Cannot Garnish A Fathers Salary, Nor Freeze His Account, Nor Seize His Property On Behalf Of His Children, In Our Society. Apparently This Is Because A Kid Is Not A Car Or A Couch Or A Boat.

I Am A Feminist, And What That Means To Me Is Much The Same As The Meaning Of The Fact That I Am Black: It Means That I Must Undertake To Love Myself And To Respect Myself As Though My Very Life Depends Upon Self-love And Self-respect.