In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Elizabeth Alexander (1962– ) Tina Green Small story, hair story, Afro-American story, only-black-girl-in-my-class story, pre-adolescence story, black-teacher story. “Take your hair out,” they beg on the playground, the cool girls, the straight-and-shiny-hair girls, the girls who can run. “Take your hair out,” they say. It is Washington hot, we are running, I do, and it swells, snatches up at the nape, levitates, woolly universe, knotting, fleece zeppelin, run. So I do, into school, to the only black teacher I’ll have until college, the only black teacher I’ve had to that point, the only black teacher to teach at that school full of white people who (tell the truth) I love, the teacher I love, whose name I love, whose hair I love, takes me in the teacher’s bathroom and wordlessly fixes my hair, perfectly, wordlessly fixes my hair into three tight plaits. ...

Share