It Would Be Ten Years Before They

Evil Is So Seductive. It Needs To Grind You Up And Make You Its Slave.

All The Books That Were Being Published By African-american Guys Were Saying 'screw Whitey', Or Some Variation Of That. Not The Scholars But The Pop Books. And The Other Thing They Said Was, 'you Have To Confront The Oppressor.' I Understand That. But You Don't Have To Look At The World Through His Eyes. I'm Not A Stereotype; I'm Not Somebody Else's Version Of Who I Am. And So When People Said At That Time Black Is Beautiful – Yeah? Of Course. Who Said It Wasn't? So I Was Trying To Say, In The Bluest Eye, Wait A Minute. Guys. There Was A Time When Black Wasn't Beautiful. And You Hurt.

From My Point Of View, Which Is That Of A Storyteller, I See Your Life As Something Artful, Waiting, Just Waiting And Ready For You To Make It Art.

It Had Been The Longest Time Since She Had Had A Rib-scraping Laugh. She Had Forgotten How Deep And Down It Could Be. So Different From The Miscellaneous Giggles And Smiles She Had Learned To Be Content With These Past Few Years.

Beginning 'beloved' With Numerals Rather Than Spelled Out Numbers, It Was My Intention To Give The House An Identity Separate From The Street Or Even The City.