18 June 2016: I spent a large part of today re-reading Jacqueline Woodson's fantastic Brown Girl Dreaming, a book we are discussing on Monday in my summer class. This is the third time I've read through it, but something new speaks to me each time.
Consider "Greenville, South Carolina, 1963," in which Woodson tells of her mother's journey from Ohio (where she lives with her husband) back to South Carolina (where she grew up), but this time accompanied by her three Ohio-born children. After chiding them to be quiet, sit up straight, and be deferential to white folks, she has quiet second thoughts:
"Then her mouth softens, her hand moves gently
over my brother's warm head. He is three years old,
his wide eyes open to the world, his too-big ears
already listening. We're as good as anybody,
my mother whispers.
As good as anybody."
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