Who Will I Be When I Grow Up

Today it is hard to believe that there was a time that there were very few images of black people in the media. Who did you most want to be like when you grew up? The cultural icons of the 60s, 70s and 80s were very different. If it weren't for Jet and Ebony magazine I would not have had a real image of what was possible for me and visions of who I needed to become. Cultural identity is reflected back in the positive images of self.

I always loved Gladys Knight. As a little girl with a lot of hair she was the only woman that I saw with long flowing hair. She was beautiful to me, she was talented, and classy.

My favorite author was Langston Hughes. I remember writing a report on him and my teacher had no idea who he was. He was one of the greatest writers of the Harlem Renaissance but he was omitted from any discussions of literature in my school. There was a poem that he wrote that summed up my experience.

I, Too, Sing America

I am the darker brother,
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes.
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed-
I, too, am American

At the same time that I was learning to recite Shakespeare's, "All the Worlds a Stage" it was Langston Hughes' poem "Mother to Son" that felt most real to me. But it is when you read his poem, Freedom's Plow that you understand how he rather than Shakespeare spoke to me and my experience. I wanted to look like Gladys but I wanted to be able to write and express myself like Langston.

Mother to Son

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now --
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.