Karen E. Quinones Miller's Blog
December 28, 2012
Excerpt from An Angry-Ass Black Woman
We moved around a lot, but 117th Street was our ground zero. We moved to 115th Street, 116th Street, 118th Street, and 119th Street. Once my mom actually moved us to the Bronx. I’ll never forget the address. 525 Rosedale Avenue. It was in an integrated housing project. The Bronx River Projects. First time we’d ever lived around white kids. We weren’t there for long, though.
Me and Kitty was six then, and David was seven. Me, him, and Kitty all used to take the school bus to P. S. 100 every morning and back every afternoon. There was this little white girl in David’s class who used to ride the bus, too. Dorothy had long wavy blonde hair and big blue eyes. She was tall for her age like David, and so pretty that everybody went around talking how pretty she was and that she should go into acting so she could become a movie star. She was really that pretty. My guess is she grew up and changed her name to Kim Bassinger.
But this one day on the bus, all the kids were singing that stupid Doo Wah Diddy song when someone noticed that Dorothy and David were holding hands while they sang. This skinny white boy, Alvin, pointed at Dorothy and said “You letting that nigger touch you?”
Well, black people on 117th Street call each other nigger all the time, but even at six you know better than to let a white boy say that shit . . .
An Angry-Ass Black Woman
Me and Kitty was six then, and David was seven. Me, him, and Kitty all used to take the school bus to P. S. 100 every morning and back every afternoon. There was this little white girl in David’s class who used to ride the bus, too. Dorothy had long wavy blonde hair and big blue eyes. She was tall for her age like David, and so pretty that everybody went around talking how pretty she was and that she should go into acting so she could become a movie star. She was really that pretty. My guess is she grew up and changed her name to Kim Bassinger.
But this one day on the bus, all the kids were singing that stupid Doo Wah Diddy song when someone noticed that Dorothy and David were holding hands while they sang. This skinny white boy, Alvin, pointed at Dorothy and said “You letting that nigger touch you?”
Well, black people on 117th Street call each other nigger all the time, but even at six you know better than to let a white boy say that shit . . .
An Angry-Ass Black Woman
