Okay, Okay. There have been lots of great stuff happening. I am skipping that list to go to the main event: I am actually working (under a deadline) on my musical AKA my one-woman show. After decades of talking about it, I am actively doing it. For real, for real. My friend the acclaimed solo artist and teacher Arlene Malinowski, who also helped me form some of the early stories I had written, summed it up thusly: You just need to find someone to put their foot on your neck! I found that …
nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger
That is the opening line of a piece from my one woman show that I performed at the January Story Jam series in Wimette, Illinois. Wilmette is a mostly affluent, predominantly White suburb of Chicago. I entitled the story "nigger," which tells the story of the first time I was called such by a White person. I have to admit that I had some reservations about presenting a story about being called a nigger to a mostly White audience - for about a minute. Hell, I told the world that I weigh 300 …