Make-or-Miss League
With more and more professional sports events being televised, I’m drawn back to the fun of the language. “It’s a make-or-miss league,” NBA announcers and players will wisely inform us when a game-deciding shot attempt falls or fails. But when people everywhere on the planet shoot the ball, they want it to go in. Sometimes […]
China, Black Poetry, and Me
When I thought I was going to visit China, I began thinking about the picture that I held in my head about the country and about the information used to create that portrait, for example, news media, television shows, movies, articles, books, and personal encounters with Chinese immigrants and with Americans of Chinese descent. Exactly […]
Poetry and Rhetoric
The virtuoso poet Audre Lorde opened her popular poem “Power” with the following lines: The difference between poetry and rhetoric is being ready to kill yourself instead of your children. The stanza has puzzled many readers, but there has also been a vibrant and varied critical response. The first stanza is sometimes read as a […]
White Nationalism and Trump
It is fairly easy to see that white nationalism is largely an expression of fascist impulses. It would be hard not to when white-nationalist trolls circulate in cyberspace calling themselves fashy. Some debate how closely we should tie Donald Trump’s rhetoric to the inane rantings and ravings of these white-nationalist legions. I say we should […]
For Charles Rudolph Scott
I missed a good speech on September 15, 1970. The person that gave it, Chuck Scott, as we knew him, was a childhood friend, my next-door neighbor in Corona, Queens, who was like a brother to me. There were five Scott brothers, and I fit right in the middle of the bunch age-wise, so I […]
BIPOC
In the club of ethnic labeling, BIPOC tryna get it in. The term Black, Indigenous and People of Color is a well-meaning attempt in activist circles to highlight particular experiences in relation to oppression and use inclusive terminology as part of anti-white-supremacist initiatives. Of course, you don’t need an acronym to accomplish these things. You […]
Composition and Satchel Paige
Once I was at a composition conference headquartered in downtown Nashville. Some colleagues and I, having never seen Fisk University, decided to make the trip. During our trip, we ran across a sports shop near campus that showcased Negro League memorabilia. When I stepped inside and saw a photo of Satchel Paige, I exclaimed firmly […]
From Langston Hughes to Muhammad Ali to Black Arts
Only on rereading Langston Hughes’s The Big Sea for my course on African American Autobiography did I ponder name and geography connections. Hughes identifies his paternal great-grandfather as Sam Clay, a white man who lived in Henry County, Kentucky. Sam Clay, Hughes suggests, was a relative of Henry Clay, who was a Senator, Secretary of […]
The New Thing
“What’s up, Semple Jenkins. You’re moving pretty fast out here.” “Tryna get home with this stationery to finish this letter to my folks down South. I thought it would only take a few minutes, but my godson decided to help me. He from college like you. So I ran out of paper.” Semple extended his […]
Rhetoric Lessons in Street Fiction
“Well, in being a virtuous leader, that’s where your ability to use the third liberal art of rhetoric comes into play. You must be a good negotiator and motivational speaker, make them see and want to for whatever acceptable reasons inspire them.” “I don’t understand. What’s rhetoric?” “It’s the art of using words effectively and […]
