That's how women are, always studyin' each other and wonderin' how they look up 'gainst the next.

writing is a labor of love and also an act of defiance, a way to light a candle in a gale wind.

And realizing there is no such thing as the Black experience. Time and events allow for change on both sides.

The Black writer explains pain to those who inflict it.

It becomes almost second nature to be on guard against the creative pattern of our own thought.

"The good old days." The only good days are ahead.

We think of poverty as a condition simply meaning a lack of funds, no money, but when one sees fifth, sixth, and seventh generation poor, it is clear that poverty is as complicated as high finance.