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HOME 2003-04-27
Nina Simone (b. Eunice Waymon) 2.21.33 Tryon, North Carolina / D. 4.21.03 Carry-le-Rouet, France Mood Indigo Nigger nine times in one conversational burst I counted last week sitting next to a young black guy on the Q train.
Nina Simone left the country in 1973, living in Liberia and Barbados before settling in France. In a 1998 interview, she said she had left the United States because of a racial situation she called “worse than ever.”
I said nigger out loud for the first time maybe two years ago it slipped out like my brain pan was Pandora’s box and my precious gray matter not at all not at all. Nigger wingéd like discord; like discord spread. Three, four months later my tongue found another one loitering under my palate.
When “ghetto” as if it were Sweet ‘n’ Low fails to satisfy.
How many girlfriends used to say, as if only to bug me, “Not a criticism, just an observation”? At least one maybe two. Years ago. Nigger like I’m knowledgeable and it’s a distinction I’m making: them not the well-behaved them not you or yes you (loutish, NBA-branded) not me, the one with the mouth like a razor.
When France isn’t far enough.
Quotation from The New York Times Obituary (4.22.03)
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