Assata: An Autobiography Read Online Free PDF Page A

that my grandmother didn't like, i would have to return to the store and get the thing changed or get my money back. "You speak up loud and clear. Don't let me have to go down to that store." Scared to death of the fuss my grand mother would make if she had to go to the store herself, i would hurry back to the store, prepared to raise almighty hell.
    Whenever my grandmother heard about somebody being mis treated, especially if it was a man mistreating a woman, she would glare at me and say, "Don't you let anybody mistreat you, you hear? We're not raising you up to be mistreated, you hear? I don't want you taking no mess off of nobody, you understand?" "Yes, Grand mother," i would answer, for what seemed like the millionth time, wondering why my grandmother liked to repeat herself so often. The tactics that my grandparents used were crude, and i hated it when they would repeat everything so often. But the lessons that they taught me, more than anything else i learned in life, helped me to deal with the things i would face growing up in amerika.
    But a lot of times, for my grandparents, pride and dignity were hooked up to things like position and money. For them, being "just as good" as white people meant having what white people had. They would tell me to go to school and study so that i could have a nice house and nice clothes and a nice car. "White people don't want to see us with nothing," they would tell me. "That's why you've got to get your education so that you can be somebody and have something in life." Becoming "somebody" in life just didn't mean too much to me. I wanted to feel happy, to feel good. My awareness of class differences in the Black community came at an early age. Although my grandmother taught me more about being proud and strong than anyone i know, she had a lot of Booker T. Washington, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, "talented tenth" ideas. She had worked hard and had made a decent living as a pieceworker in a factory, but she had other ideas for me. She was determined that i would become part of Wilmington's talented tenth-the privileged class-part of the so-called Black bourgeoisie.
    One of her first steps was to sternly forbid me to play with "alley rats." It was impossible for me to obey her orders since i had absolutely no idea what an alley rat was. I often became the unwitting object of my grandmother's fury, charged with the crime of alley rat playing. My grandmother, writhing with annoyance, would threaten me with untold punishments if i continued my evil ways. I received strict orders to abandon my penchant for alley rats and play with "decent children." But we could never agree on who "decent children" were. Decent children, to my grandmother, were a whole 'nother story.
    "Decent children" came from "decent families". How did you know what a decent family was? A decent family lived in a decent house. How did you know what a decent house was? A decent house was fixed up nice and had a sidewalk in front of it. Decent families didn't let their kids play in the street with no shoes on and didn't let their kids say "ain't." Little did my grandmother know that ain't was my favorite word once i got two feet out of her hearing range. My grandmother had a little alley rat right under her roof and she didn't even know it. Alley rats supposedly lived in alleys, in run-down shacks, but my grandmother would often call one of my friends an alley rat even if the kid didn't live in an alley.
    Dutifully, to put some sense in my head, she would take me to visit "decent children." These decent little souls were invariably the offspring of Wilmington's Black doctors, lawyers, preachers, and undertakers. Schoolteachers, barbershop owners, and the editor of the "colored" newspaper were also decent. In most of these "de cent" little play sessions, the other kids and I would stand around looking at each other awkwardly. Sometimes we would get it on and have some fun. But more often than not, it would be