"I don't need no books to tell me how to be black,"

TV, movies, the radio; those were the places to start. Pop culture was color-coded, after all, an arcade of images from

which you could cop a walk, a talk, a step, a style. I couldn’t croon like Marvin Gaye, but I could learn to dance all the

Soul Train steps. I couldn’t pack a gun like Shaft or Superfly, but I could sure enough curse like Richard Pryor.

black men, mostly gym rats and has-beens, would teach me an attitude that didn’t just have to do with the sport. That respect came from what you did and not who your daddy was. That you could talk stuff to rattle an opponent, but that you should shut the hell up if you couldn’t back it up. That you didn’t let anyone sneak up behind you to see emotions-like hurt or fear-you didn’t want them to see.

‘Yes, Miss Snooty Bitch, I just find this novel so engaging, if I can just have one more day for that paper, I’ll kiss your white ass.’

And the final irony: Should you refuse this defeat and lash out at your captors, they would have a name for that, too, a name that could cage you just as good. Paranoid. Militant. Violent. Nigger.

“Gotta have them ribs.” “And pussy, too. Don’t Malcolm talk about no pussy? Now you know that ain’t gonna work.” I noticed Ray laughing and looked at him sternly. “What are you laughing at?” I said to him. “You’ve never read Malcolm. You don’t even know what he says.”

“I don’t need no books to tell me how to be black,”