For Colored Girls who have considered suicide
It all begins with an idea.
for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf is a 1976 choreopoem by Ntozake Shange. It consists of a series of poetic monologues to be accompanied by dance movements and music. The choreopoem tells the stories of seven women who have suffered oppression in a racist and sexist society.
The piece is a series of 20 separate poems choreographed to music that weaves interconnected stories of love, empowerment, struggle and loss into a complex representation of sisterhood. The cast consists of seven nameless African-American women only identified by the colors they are assigned. They are the lady in red, lady in orange, lady in yellow, lady in green, lady in blue, lady in brown, and lady in purple. Subjects from rape, abandonment, abortion and domestic violence are tackled.
Shange originally wrote the monologues as separate poems in 1974. Her writing style is idiosyncratic and she often uses vernacular language, unique structure, and unorthodox punctuation to emphasize syncopation.
for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf has been performed all over the world and has been translated into many languages. It has been adapted into a film, a television series, and a ballet. The choreopoem has been praised for its powerful and moving portrayal of the experiences of black women in America. It is considered to be a classic of American literature.
Love as the Practice of Freedom
In the essay that follows from that book, Hooks proposes an "ethic of love" as the means by which we might be guided to turn away from an ethic of domination.
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.
Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.
Beloved
Beloved (1987) is the haunting novel written by Toni Morrison in 1987. It tells the story of the struggles of enslaved African Americans and the trauma slavery causes. A popular but chilling magical realist tale, Beloved was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1988.
Beloved is a 1987 novel by Toni Morrison that tells the story of a Black woman named Sethe, who has escaped slavery in Kentucky and now lives in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1873. The novel is set after the American Civil War and explores the destructive legacy of slavery through flashbacks to her time as a slave. Sethe's home is haunted by a malevolent spirit, the ghost of her dead daughter, Beloved, who returns to haunt her.
Morrison was inspired to write the novel by the true story of Margaret Garner, who escaped slavery in Kentucky in 1856 and was later captured by US marshals under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. When Garner tried to kill her children to prevent them from being returned to slavery, Morrison drew inspiration from an account of the event titled "A Visit to the Slave Mother who Killed Her Child" in an 1856 newspaper article.
Beloved won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988 and was a finalist for the 1987 National Book Award.