Nikki-Rosa

childhood remembrances are always a drag   

if you’re Black

you always remember things like living in Woodlawn   

with no inside toilet

and if you become famous or something

they never talk about how happy you were to have   

your mother

all to yourself and

how good the water felt when you got your bath   

from one of those

big tubs that folk in chicago barbecue in   

and somehow when you talk about home   

it never gets across how much you

understood their feelings

as the whole family attended meetings about Hollydale

and even though you remember

your biographers never understand

your father’s pain as he sells his stock   

and another dream goes

And though you’re poor it isn’t poverty that

concerns you

and though they fought a lot

it isn’t your father’s drinking that makes any difference   

but only that everybody is together and you

and your sister have happy birthdays and very good   

Christmases

and I really hope no white person ever has cause   

to write about me

because they never understand

Black love is Black wealth and they’ll

probably talk about my hard childhood

and never understand that

all the while I was quite happy

Yesterday in class I chose to present the poem Nikki-Rosa by Nikki Giovanni (OA 246). When I first read it, I was immediately overcome by a sense of guilt, because while I'm often susceptible to seeing the “rags-to-riches” narrative as the most important if not only side of a person’s story, I have simultaneously taken what I have for granted. It’s important to note that the poem itself does not intend to invoke guilt, in fact the author makes it clear that pity is the last thing she wants. The mix of nostalgia, irritation, and bitterness summarizes how she remembers her childhood and how she feels about the way others try to portray it. In class I likened this to how you feel when people keep asking “what’s wrong?” no matter how many times you tell them you’re fine. They don’t understand.

The artist wants to set a good example for other members of her race but is constantly hindered by other people’s one-dimensional marginalization of her experiences; in the process, these perhaps well-intentioned “white biographers”  misrepresent her. And it isn’t just the happy remembrances that they misinterpret -- in addition to focusing on the lack of an indoor toilet and bathtub instead of how warm the water felt, or her father’s drinking and her parents’ fighting instead of the closeness of their family, they also don’t understand “your father’s pain as he sells his stock”. To these people, this is just another sad fact of her hard black life, part of the feel-good, strength-in-the-face-of-adversity tale they want to sell. Or perhaps they think that by presumptuously highlighting and magnifying these specific perils they are somehow dignifying African Americans, as if suffering is the only thing that made them who they are.

Neil expertly pointed out the line “they never talk about how happy you were to have your mother all to yourself”, which just reiterates the ignorance of American media and how inclined they would be to fixate on the absence of her father and not how much she enjoyed the attention from her mother. This kind of pessimism is not only patronizing and condescending but also characteristic of the self-righteous morality that exists in this country. When I asked the class if they could think of any contemporary examples of glamorizing misfortune, it went from athletes to popstars, some of whom were not black but all of whom missed the point that “black love is black wealth”.

It’s not difficult to identify that the root of this transgression comes from materialism and is not just a “white” issue. I’m aware that the artist herself has even expressed that it’s “important for us to be the tellers of our own stories; because only then would they be as authentic as we are. And by we I don’t mean just Black people, I mean all human beings. I wholeheartedly believe in autobiographies. And I don’t care much for biographies.” I will leave you on this note; all of us at Uni are relatively fortunate, and you've at least had the luxury of a peaceful childhood, the luxury to complain, or the luxury to ask for expensive gifts on your birthdays and Christmases. But if you ever become famous or something, no one will ever question if you were happy -- please remember that that too is a luxury.