Black Literature Finds Work III
- KG1
- 15 hours ago
- 2 min read
The inclusion of Black literary references in my guilty-pleasure crime shows continues. An old alto saxophonist, Marshall Grant (Willie C. Carpenter), once the boyfriend of Bumpy Johnson’s elder sister Mabel and present employee in Bumpy’s club, brings Bumpy a gift. While the two are seated at the bar, Grant hands Bumpy a copy of Claude McKay’s Harlem Shadows, a book that Bumpy had given Mabel years ago in an attempt to get her to share his love of poetry. Bumpy turns to “If We Must Die” and reads aloud the opening lines: “If we must die, let it not be like hogs / Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot / While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs / Making their mock at our accursèd lot.” The poem, with its “dying but fighting back” conclusion, presumably has been a motto for him during his legal and extralegal careers. In particular, the poem commemorates Bumpy’s latest real estate victory, which Grant helped him to achieve. The verse also foretells Grant’s death as well as looming setbacks for Johnson.
Over on BMF, while a domineering and somewhat obnoxious Lucille Flenory (Michole Briana White) is accompanying her daughter Nicole (Laila Pruitt) on a campus visit to Morris Brown, she runs into another parent while they are at a book exhibit. As Lucille obtains a book by Maya Angelou (can’t tell which one), she tells another parent, Felicia (Reece Odum), who is involved with the exhibit, that Angelou was always one of her favorite authors. In response, her interlocutor, clad in pink and green, proclaims ceremoniously that her favorite is Toni Morrison and that she is happy to call both Morrison and Angelou her sorors (Morrison a pledged one, Angelou honorary). She inquires if Lucille, who ironically wears a royal blue (Zeta color) blouse, belongs to a sorority, and Lucille responds reprovingly that she always considered sororities cliquish. Then follows an edgy but polite tit-for-tat during which the two women talk about the social and academic prospects of their daughters until Lucille, sensing she is on the losing end, retreats. Does that mean Toni trumps Maya? Or simply that a person who fronts can be exposed? I must ponder this more, especially that blue blouse.
But for now, I’m angling to get Black literature more major work. How about a long-running television series that moves beyond cameos and develops whole plot lines and seasons around Black literature? One could dramatize “red summer,” that is, the racist violence in 1919, and McKay’s creative evolution alongside it given that “If We Must Die” was originally published that July. The adaptation of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is almost 50 years old. There’s more to do with Morrison’s characters than to make a movie about Beloved.
Black literature presents limitless possibilities.