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8 A. VAN JORDAN Time Reviews the Ziegfeld Follies Featuring Josephine Baker, 1936 TIME REViEW: Before, we pictured her without diamonds, Without sequined gowns and a face of paint. We could say that this show was not the time For a lithe St. Louis girl of her race To flaunt her flanks in front of New York men. How could she expect us to find applause, When we had saved to throw coins of applause To Fanny Brice, our star, a diamond On a stage of lights? Besides, what these men Wanted was a dream well drawn behind paint, Not a life-size black doll flaunting her race And wares as if this were her place and time. Parisian and brown? This was not the time For a poor Negro girl to find applause When she had given up her one true race— America—for filthy France. Diamonds Draped from her neck and ears, but even paint Chips on the wrong surface. A street woman Posing as a lady—please. Petty men Could appreciate her dance, which was timed To a beat of rags and old iron. Paint The picture true, and let’s save the applause For patriots—Eve Arden, a diamond, And Bob Hope, a charm—not this girl with race On her hips and tongue. The spice of race Can be sweet or tart; the lips of the man Who tastes will be surprised. To think diamonds Will clear the palate is a waste of time. Sure, we gave Princess Tam Tam an applause, Even if she mumbled through songs and paint, Even when she would cry and run her paint, We listened. This is not about her race But her choice of song, her need for applause That would outshine Fanny Brice. Any man Would give her a break, but the place and time Was not this night. Yes, Brice was our diamond. JOsEPHinE bAKER REsPOnDs: They want bananas on hips, not diamonds On my décolletage. I’m under the paint, Sinews dancing through segregated time; It’s not all about jazz or even race. Fanny Brice’s bland version of “My Man,” In smoke-filled bars couldn’t steal an applause, So how do they think she deserves applause On Broadway under lights and with diamonds Dangling from her dewlap? I got a man, He stays with me when I take off the paint, And he doesn’t care about this whole race Hoopla; he loves Josephine for me. Time Magazine just started taking the time To acknowledge Negroes, and now applause From them is supposed to predict racial Equality on stage? Talent? Diamonds Determine my success. They can go paint Broadway as white as they please, all the men On the Champs will tell you I’m the woman By which they measure others; only Time Had a problem with my act, when the paint Comes off, that’s all it comes down to: applause From friends not foes. Just look at this diamond On my hand from my Pepito; does race Refract in its eye, or light? You see race Is not real, only light and love; no man, Negro or white, can change that. The diamond Holds so much truth because it endures time; It struggles through nothingness for applause; It holds its breath, dark, naked without paint Or the benefit of believing paint Will change things because she is the same race As coal underneath it all. And applause Is just some dream. At times, even my man Who, after all, is white, doesn’t see time And again how I’m merely a diamond Trying to catch some light under the paint. Man, I’m telling you, race problems will change with time, Long after applause and this diamond’s light fades. AMERICANA ...

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