Saturday, August 16, 2008

Once Upon a Time

Bernadette Adora


It was an old black ‘n white photograph stuffed into a fancy silver frame that a dear girlfriend reached up and grabbed off my book shelf; she began immediately to tease me. After studying the seventeen year old girl in a full length gown with her daddy in tails proudly escorting her onto a ballroom floor, the young girl’s patent-leather hair still glistening through the faded image, my friend pronounced, “Definitely, ‘once upon a time when we were Colored!’” And then she threw her head back and laughed, and I shook my own head, which was cut in a short, clean-lined Afro and demanded, “Give me that back, you don’t have any respect!” After which, I laughed hard myself, ‘cause she was right; she was right-on!

Growing up in Detroit in the fifties and sixties was for me, a fine time to be Colored, to be Negro, to be Black, to be African-American, to be who I was and who I could and would become despite segregation; my father’s hard working, hard drinking ways; our little bitty money stretched to its limits. There was a whole lotta hope and determination for so-called, better times; it was then that we could and we would nearly always envision more . Be it the new thought understanding that is prevalent today in books and on Oprah, or just because we gave it our all despite what society said we could and could not have or could and could not be -- better times did come to pass. Quite simply stated, it is my unadorned and unabashed belief that it remains a privilege to help keep the dream alive, to help keep those so-called, better times just keep on keepin' on. Period.

BA 6/30/08

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