Alice Childress

The life of a thirteen-year-old Harlem youth on his way to becoming a confirmed heroin addict is seen from his viewpoint and from that of several people around him.

A Hero Ain't Nothin' But a Sandwich

salma

“Listen and learn, Benjie, time is changin, there's gonna be more opportunity." But he gets to my soul nerve when he keep sayin that, cause I don't see him doin nothin but bein a janitor in one of whitey's downtown buildins. Hear him tell it, he ain't no janitor, he a maintenance man. Dig it, maintenance man ain't nothin but a jive-ass name for janitor.

When I use this segregation they have laid on us, use it to bring us closer and wiser in Blackness, Cohen screams about 'segregation in reverse!" I held a two-period rap session on that accusation. "ow comne it is,"I say, "that when whitey pushes us off to one side through law and mass muscle, that is segregation, but when we get to usin our enforced togetherness, they call it 'segregation in reverse'?" Then I go to cookin on the subject and clarify for them. "What they mean," I say, "is that when segrega- tion works against us, that's what it's suppose to do, so it's in forward, but when it starts to work against them, it's in reverse, meanin that it's goin the wrong way. You see, whitey is not ever gonna say he is bein segregated against, that would be too much like what happens to me. That's how come it is he yells that it's goin into reverse.' " When the hurtin is on us, it's in forward; on him it's in reverse.

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