Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now - Maya Angelou [11]
Many adults show impatience with the young. They want them not only to grow up, but to grow old, and that immediately. They are quick to chide, criticize, and admonish:
“Be quiet.”
“Sit down.”
“Why are you always wiggling?”
“Keep still.”
Whether consciously or not, those admonishments stem from a vigorous dissatisfaction with life and regret for a misspent youth.
Voices of Respect
African Americans as slaves could not even claim to have won the names given to them in haste and given without a care, but they pridefully possessed a quality which modified the barbarism of their lives. They awoke before sunrise to be in the fields at first light and trudged back to floorless cabins in the evening’s gloom. They had little chance for amicable exchange in the rows of cotton and the stands of sugarcane; still, they devised ways of keeping their souls robust and spirits alive in that awful atmosphere. They employed formally familial terms when addressing each other. Neither the slaveowner nor the slave overseer was likely to speak to a servant in anything but the cruelest language. But in the slave society Mariah became Aunt Mariah and Joe became Uncle Joe. Young girls were called Sister, Sis, or Tutta. Boys became Brother, Bubba, and Bro and Buddy. It is true that those terms used throughout the slave communities had had their roots in the African worlds from which the slaves had been torn, but under bondage they began to have greater meaning and a more powerful impact. As in every society, certain tones of voice were and still are used to establish the quality of communication between the speaker and the person addressed. When African Americans choose to speak sweetly to each other, not only do the voices fall in register, but there is an unconscious increase in music between the speakers. In fact, a conversation between friends can sound as melodic as a scripted song.
We have used these terms to help us survive slavery, its aftermath, and today’s crisis of revived racism. However, now, when too many children run mad in the land, and now, when we need courtesy as much as or more than ever, and when a little tenderness between people could make life more bearable, we are losing even the appearance of courtesy. Our youth, finding little or no courtesy at home, make exodus into streets filled with violent self-revulsion and an exploding vulgarity.
We must re-create an attractive and caring attitude in our homes and in our worlds. If our children are to approve of themselves, they must see that we approve of ourselves. If we persist in self-disrespect and then ask our children to respect themselves, it is as if we break all their bones and then insist that they win Olympic gold medals for the hundred-yard dash.
Outrageous.
Extending the Boundaries
Terry’s Pub was my pub, and it was the place to be if you were black and hip and in New York City. The bartenders were paragons of urban elegance, mixing and serving drinks smoothly and participating in conversations which ranged in subject matter from whether China should be allowed in the UN to the proper length of a micromini skirt.
The regulars were writers, models, high school principals, actors, journalists, movie actors, musicians, and college professors.
One afternoon I entered Terry’s to find myself surrounded by well-wishers with wide smiles and loud congratulations.
The bartender showed me the New York Post and then presented me with a huge martini. I was featured as the newspaper’s “Person of the Week.” The regulars suspended their usual world-weary demeanor, giving hearty compliments, which I accepted heartily.
Eventually the toasters returned to their tables and I was left to grow gloomy in silence. Moodiness and a creeping drunkenness from too many martinis dimmed the room and my spirits.
Here, in my finest hour, I was alone. What had I done to any man to make him want to leave me and, even worse, not to win me to his side in the first place?
The questions came in the order of a military phalanx. Each marched into my consciousness, was recognized,