by Gayl Jones
Mosquito, you don’t mean that, she say. She even looking at me like I ain’t the Mosquito she think she know. She know I am that Mosquito, but she looking at me like I’m a different Mosquito.
I’m talking ’bout men that loves me, I say, drinking my Bud Light, while she’s wiping off the counter. I ain’t talking ’bout them others. I ain’t talking political, I’m talking love. Even my ex-husband had his own idea of who I am. I weren’t his ideal for a woman, though he coulda been my ideal for a man. But he do got his ideal woman now.
Even love’s political, say Delgadina. But I’m not talking politics either. I don’t want some man to come claiming he loves me and then telling me some idea of myself that’s a low opinion. Like there’s men that see me working in this bar that’s got a low opinion of me till I sets them straight as to who I am. I mean, men don’t just have to tell me who I am that’s got a high opinion of me. But that’s a flaw in your character, Nadine.
I’m not talking politics, Delgadina, I’m talking love. If a man loves me I want to hear who he thinks I am. I don’t think it would be some low thing.
You’re naive. Drink your Bud Light. I don’t want somebody telling me who I am even if it’s some high thing.
I ain’t so naive that I believes that. Anyway. I don’t think most men is raised to know a whole woman. And I ain’t so conceited in being a woman myself to think that we womens is raised to know a whole man. That’s why there is so many fools in love.
I likes the stories myself, the Ernest Gaines stories, I mean the stories he tells. I likes to listen to that tape and them storytellers on that, ’cause they sounds like true storytellers, and they don’t tell nobody nothing that don’t need to be told. I remember listening to one of them stories and the only way he describe this woman be saying she a Creole woman with a pile of black hair. Now that’s the only thing needs to be said to describe that woman, ’cause the listener can take that and figure out who she is. You’s got to be a man to know something about whole womanhood to even be able to describe a woman like that. And when you hears them stories you knows the whole self of the women in them, as much for a man to know. Ain’t like them nineteenth-century novels where the writer take a whole page or maybe several pages describe that woman, who she is, who she think she is, what she look like, what other people think she look like, as if the listener can’t figure out none of that for they ownself. And you don’t need to know all that about that woman in that story. Maybe in the nineteenth century they needed to know all them things about them people. Suppose I tell y’all that the throw pillows I’ve got on my sofa looks like they’s made from a court jester’s hat. What that tell y’all about me? And then what if I tell y’all that on the wall I gots me one of them posters that kinda a collage with them historical figures in the collage, but the central figure in it is Malcolm X, and that poster were made before the movie. ’Cause you know a lot of peoples they is buying them posters on account of the movie. What else that tell y’all about me? And suppose I tells y’all that I likes to mix a little cinnamon in my Bud Light? What else that tell y’all about me? I ain’t know how to describe my hair. I still wears it like the Afro weren’t just a hairstyle but a statement of faith. Sometimes I wears it underneath a scarf. Sometimes I braids it like Whoopi, though she ain’t the only one that wears them braids y’all. Sometimes I puts it in a French roll, or puts it in them little rolls like you see on some of them African women. I’m told my progenitors usedta wear their hair in every one of them fashions before they discovered the straightening comb, which ain’t to say there some of us Johnsons got that good hair. Maybe that another reason I likes that Nefertiti Johnson, ’cause her romantic women might be over there in Italy sipping champagne but they’s got they natural hair.
Anyway, it’s after hours in the cantina restaurant and Delgadina sweeping up. I be reading one of Monkey Bread’s letters and a story. She musta forgot to enclose that poetry and the photograph of herself and Cooter and Nyam-Nyam, though she did include the brochures on the international trade fairs, and she know I got dreams of attending one of them international trade fairs maybe even in Tokyo, though I ain’t sure I can picture myself in that Tokyo, though them Pacific Rim countries is supposed to have the most modern trade fairs, like that Hong Kong.
I don’t know how I got hooked on them trade fairs. I was transporting them industrial detergents when I seen me this giant pavilion and I asked folks what’s that and they be saying it’s a trade fair and I ain’t never seen so many newfangled technologies, so I got hooked on them trade fairs and got one of them magazines that tells you where all the trade fairs are. So now I’m dreaming about that Tokyo trade fair. They’s African Americans in Tokyo, though, ’cause I remember seeing this documentary on Tokyo and they interviewed some Americans including some African Americans working in Tokyo. Ain’t just them professional people in Tokyo either, they’s them bar hostesses and factory workers. Seem like them African Americans had better things to say about that Tokyo than them European Americans, ’cause them European Americans they be complaining about them Japanese the same way that the African Americans is always complaining about the European Americans; they be talking about discrimination ’cause they’s Westerners and be talking about that glass ceiling in them Japanese companies and be sounding just like they’s the niggers in Japan. The same ones who in America be telling the African American they don’t know what they’s complaining about. But I ain’t heard none of them African Americans even them bar hostesses and factory workers say nothing about the glass ceiling.
They got them minorities in that Japan, though, that they treats like niggers, too, them Koreans and them other minorities that they got a special name for them that ain’t pure Japanese, though them Japanese minorities be saying that the Americans they don’t know the difference between the pure Japanese and them minorities. And them minorities they be having them their demonstrations ’cause they don’t want to be the niggers of Japan. That’s why a lot of them peoples comes to America. ’Cause they’s the niggers in they own countries, but in America they gets to play white. One of them they interviewed, one of them African Americans, a expert on Japanese film, and be talking about the films of one of them minorities and be saying how it seem like every group or culture has got their niggers and the niggers of one group or cultures is the masters in another, and the different groups and cultures be jostling each other so’s not to be the niggers, but the niggers in one country the masters in another, like them freed slaves that returned to Africa, they supposed to made them native Africans into they niggers. And them Koreans they’s got they own whole country where they ain’t the niggers, though I guess them Koreans they be having they own minorities, they own niggers, and maybe they’s Japanese in Korea that’s niggers. At first she say she study the pure Japanese films, then she got interested in the films of the Japanese minorities. I have always dreamed of those international trade fairs, though, like I said, but I’ve only attended local and national trade fairs. Except for the trade fair in Canada which you could call international and where I met my first African.
So I’m rereading that letter from Monkey Bread and rereading them stories and wondering whether that Vietnamese African-American woman a real woman or whether she Nadine pretending to be a Vietnamese African-American woman and wondering whether Vietnamese Americans would consider her a stereotype and then I’m looking through that Tokyo International Trade Fair brochure and dreaming of Tokyo while Delgadina is sweeping. I can’t tell y’all about Delgadina sweeping, though, till I lets y’all read that newsletter from the Daughters of Nzingha. I don’t exactly remember when I received that newsletter, I just know that once I opened my mailbox and there was a newsletter from the Daughters of Nzingha, which Monkey Bread had sent me:
THE
Daughters of Nzingha
NEWSLETTER
NOT FOR MEMBERS ONLY EDITION
PUBLISHED BY THE DAUGHTERS OF NZINGHA FREE SPEECH PRESS
In thi
s newsletter, Daughters of Nzingha writers from around the world will find an opportunity to express themselves and publish their works We publish everything. What you do not find published here is kept in our archives in Zurich, Morocco, Brazil, and other countries where there are Daughters of Nzingha. If you have a manuscript in any genre, please send it to us for excerpting. We publish manuscripts in the following formats: Nzingha Free Press Publications, Bound Manuscripts, Electronic & Print Archives. We are especially interested in works by unknown and noncanonical African Diaspora authors. We are always seeking keepers of our archives, information on which you will find in this newsletter. However, the following are the qualifications for archives keeper:
1. Must be seekers after knowledge, wisdom, and learning, including self-knowledge.
2. Must conquer your own ignorance.
(Not the same as number 1.)
3. Must not submit to your own ignorance.
(Not the same as numbers 1 & 2.)
4. Must have a guerrilla personality
5. Must have the facilities to maintain an archives.
6. Must have a long memory.
7. Must be a hidden agenda and conspiracy specialist.
8. Must not bean apologist for the race, since not all of the documents contained in our archives are “praisesongs.”
9. Must be independent. (Required reading: Essays in the Literature of Rebellion available in the Daughters of Nzingha Bookshop.)
10. Must be a Daughter of Nzingha or be sponsored by a Daughter of Nzingha.
(Other qualifications are unpublished.)
Invitation
We invite you to read this newsletter only if you are a Not For Members Only Member of the Daughters of Nzingha.
Dear Not for Members Only Daughter of Nzingha,
This is the newsletter for every Not for Members Only Daughter of Nzingha. This newsletter was suggested to us by our Free Speech editor Monkey Bread—y’all know who she is from her regular stories and poetry in our For Members Only Newsletter, in stories and poetry that offer simple explanations for the essential nature of the Nzingha woman, many written in unedited free speech. Monkey Bread offers us theories of everything, but in the form of stories. She does not tie the loose ends of any of her stories together, for that is not the nature of free speech. It was Monkey Bread’s idea that we begin to collect anything and everything written by the descendants of the African Diaspora Holocaust, collect all stories, novels, poetry, and other literary documents, including works not only by our women but our men as well. The Daughters of Nzingha knows that this is a great responsibility, but it could also be a great achievement. Monkey Bread is becoming known among us as one of our teachers, at least in the area with which she is most familiar. (We wish she would “leave the plantation,” though, and stop working for that movie star!—Amanda, womanfriend! If you allow her, this womanfriend will have you listening to “Jim Dandy to the Rescue” more than attending to the purposes of the Daughters of Nzingha.) We value her however as a good storyteller. She also helps us to maintain the Romance Section of our Daughters of Nzingha bookshops with books by the leading African-American writers of romance. We are also, because of her advice, starting our Angela Section. For you politicos, we don’t mean Angela Davis, although we do have all her publications here. We mean the nonconfabulatory former engineer turned romance writer. Ain’t she from Georgia somewhere? Now y’all can find all her books in the Daughters of Nzingha bookshops. We kinda wish she would send us some engineering manuscripts for our archives, though.
How Can We Help You?
If the Daughters of Nzingha can help you, contact us.
No More Meetings
The Daughters of Nzingha is no longer holding meetings. Daughters of Nzingha members have turned our meetings into a social club, so we are no longer holding meetings. Daughters of Nzingha may now contact us only via Mrs. Cosmic Bigbee, [email protected].
Daughters of Nzingha Demonstrate
Some Daughters of Nzingha have been demonstrating and giving speeches outside of our centers for the right to hold meetings. Daughters of Nzingha management declares again: No more meetings!
Monkey Bread, Our Featured Writer
Monkey Bread was born in Covington, Kentucky, in——. She was educated at a public high school and sometimes attended classes at Kentucky State College. She currently resides in California as the personal assistant of one of the leading Hollywood stars. She has an uncompromising and magnetic personality (when asked to salute even the Daughters of Nzingha’s flag, she stated, I don’t salute nobody’s flag), a strong appetite for root tea and is a leading advocate of the African chewing stick and sponge rather than Western dentifrice. She is the ex-wife of Danny James, the Afromodernist writer (it was a secret marriage) and refers to herself as a former lover of John Henry. (’Cept you don’t stop loving John Henry, she always adds.) She’s a good cook. (You should taste her guacamole. It is featured in one of our restaurants, Chitlins con Carne with Pol. Do you know of any other race of women that can have a restaurant that serves such a combination of foods except for some of the secret societies in New Orleans?)
A Plea
Leave the Plantation!
An Artistic Event
The Mada and Coliene Gallery of Greenwich Village, New York, is exhibiting the works of the renowned New World African Artist and Artist’s Agent Paul Condor.
Jim Dandy to the Rescue
Monkey Bread is having another one of her famous Jim Dandy to the Rescue parties on her star’s yacht. All Not for Members Only Daughters of Nzingha are invited. Monkey Bread says, This is a good, old-fashioned party and is not for the Negrophobics. We’re going to have Native African watermelon, fried chicken, pork chops, turnip greens and grits! There will be numerous opportunities to party with the local coloreds as the yacht cruises the historical towns and villages of peoples of African descent. Monkey Bread has created a Jim Dandy to the Rescue Web site so that all partygoers can make their reservations online. You may also make your reservations at the Chitlins con Carne with Pol Restaurant in Oakland, California.
Recreated Settlement
Some members of the Garvey Center are recreating the Palmares Settlement, the seventeenth-century settlement of fugitive slaves in Brazil. Those who wish to become part of the New Palmares Settlement should contact your Garvey Center. We especially want engineers and those with skills. Joan Scribner Savage, minor rock star, is one of the financiers of the new settlement; however, even Joan Scribner Savage says, We do not just want singers and dancers; this is a real settlement not a Broadway show. Note: You should easily find the settlement once you are in Brazil. We cannot print its whereabouts for security reasons.
Visitors’ Center
The Daughters of Nzingha (Oakland) is starting a visitors’ center for those women who are descendants of the victims of the African Diaspora Holocaust. Now you do not even have to be a Not for Members Only Member of the Daughters of Nzingha in order to learn more about the Daughters of Nzingha.
Archaeologist
Catherine Shuger’s adopted daughter has her degree in archaeology and is now in Egypt where she is translating hieroglyphs and the Papyrus Eber. (This is not the same Papyrus Eber who is a member of our group.) She is also a leading professor at the Nzingha University.
Tour of Movie Studio
Monkey Bread is inviting some of us for a tour of the movie studio where The New Confessions of Othello is being filmed. Her star is playing the role of Desdemona in the neo-African modernist movie version of the novel. Bring your box lunches and root tea.
Herb Garden
We are seeking a new herbalist for our herb garden. You must be familiar with ancient African herbal plants and be familiar with Sophia Esmond’s Ethnoherbology. Contact Sophia at her Ivory Coast address.
Retreat
(Censored for all but the Members Only Newsletter.) A refuge for New World African women.