The Colored Port Saga
Not too long ago, an older white man called me “colored.”
Atmosphere absent of malice and condemnation, I knew it was safe to not be insulted. His lashing had not the same weight of the Woolworth’s and soda jerks of his heyday; nevertheless, my 21st century spirit rewound, the best she could fabricate, to the decades that fell before her fleshly actualization.
We felt as though we had walked the same streets that once had stallions blindly (surely nothing so regal could have known of its bigoted usage) obeying their masters to emote fear from even the most petrified of black mamas.
We felt like we were on our way home to don all black uniforms, pick our crown into an Angela fro, and march with fists high.
The more my spirit illuminated my limbic flames, the more I realized that she was right.
I do walk these same streets.
And, though my hair is locked, I’ve donned many a noir regalia and walked proudly in my blackness.
I wanted my spirit to be proud.
So I sat and revisited the days I truly did live and realized my time and history here in Shreveport were worth writing.
And reading.
And loving.
Enjoy.