I love my own culture. I love my African-American culture very deeply, and I know it deserves to be honored. You have to be aware that people are suffering unjustly, and given our own history we have a duty to stand for the people who are being treated like our parents and grandparents and children were treated.
It has been proved that the land can exist without the country - and be better for it; it has not been proved ... that the country can exist without the land.
People tend to think that life really does progress for everyone eventually, that people progress, but actually only some people progress. The rest of the people don't.
Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to git attention we do, except walk?
My big complaint with myself is that I get tired. But, I forgive myself because it's human to get tired. But, I didn't always feel like I could forgive myself. There's a certain [drive], I think. But, now I feel like, "OK, you can be tired. People should let you be tired. Then you should go and take a nap, and you should sleep." That's about it.
Sometimes, reading a blog, which I do infrequently, I see that generations of Americans have been wilfully crippled, and can no longer spell or write a sentence.
Clearly older women and especially older women who have led an active life or elder women who successfully maneuver through their own family life have so much to teach us about sharing, patience, and wisdom.
Aside from the fact that they say it's unhealthy, my fat ain't never been no trouble. Mens always have loved me. My kids ain't never complained. Plus they's fat.
I don't require myself or anyone to go beyond what they feel they can do. I just do suggest - for their own eventual happiness - that they go as far as they can. They can usually go much further than they think.
I can be almost terminally grief-stricken because things are so dire, but at the same, there's a real lightheartednes s about just the recoverability of life, of how things change, how they're not the same, ever again.