Dark Don't Catch Me Read Online Free PDF Page A

his older sister to bathe, not even sure what the difference was if there was any, he’d learned to sing rhymes like that, tell jokes like that and giggle at them, side by side with learning not to look white folks in the eye; to call them
mister
and expect to be called “boy” by them your whole life long because in their minds Negroes never became men, no matter years.
    Why in hell was it, he wondered; where in hell did that talk belong; why? Once he asked Betty’s father.
    Who said, “Well, Major, well, I know. Now how can I explain?”
    â€œWhat I don’t see, Doc, is why Negroes say it. Who wants white women?”
    â€œWell, Major, well — look at it this way. Since the Negro got to this country, Southern men have been worrying about protecting Southern white womanhood, see. You know how they say, ‘Well, if we let the rule get broken; next thing we know one of them Nigras is marrying our sister.’ “
    â€œI don’t see what that’s got to do with it! Why do Negroes have to joke about it, as though the white man was right about that being the only thing a Negro wants; about that being so when it’s not so! Who wants a pale old white woman, Doc? Why do Negroes talk that way the whole time?”
    â€œWell, Major, look at it this way. The white man’s so sure that’s what the Negro wants he’s made to so the Negro’s got to laugh at that whim; better than let it subdue his mind and soul. Major, the Negro learned a long time ago the reason for all the customs and laws; the segregation — all that, Major, was set up and kept going here just so the Negro doesn’t marry the white man’s sister, whom he probably wouldn’t want to marry in the first place, whom she probably wouldn’t want to marry either. White menfolks, Major, don’t have a whole lot of self-confidence, or else they got a closet full of neurotic sisters. Anyway — ”
    â€œWhat’s that got to do with how the Negroes talk, Doc?”
    â€œNow, I’m getting to that, Major … You see the white man succeeds in keeping us in cotton fields, in movie balconies, and on Jim Crow cars — for the most part, he succeeds there. But in the realm of sex, Major, sometimes he doesn’t succeed — or sometimes we like to imagine he doesn’t — and that’s the most sacred realm of all to the white man. So when Negroes say their jokes about Rastus getting caught with the white boss’s wife, that’s sort of their way of saying to themselves: We’re just as good as the whites; this proves it. We’re better because we’re better between the sheets.”
    â€œI hate that talk!”
    â€œWell, Major, I know, but there’s little enough to laugh at down here. Little enough. And our people are poor and ignorant. Lord help them; and the whites will keep them that way if they can.”
    â€¢ • •
    Remembering that conversation as Major turns down Brockton road, Major recalls Mrs. Ficklin watching him all morning, sitting out on her side porch fanning herself and watching him; then near noontime when he was hauling the ashcans back up from the burner her asking him:
    â€œYou ever been up North, Major?” She was leaning against the porch post, smiling, the sunlight showing through her sheer summer dress, to the slip, to the panties. “Have you, Major?”
    â€œNo, ma’am.”
    â€œNever have, huh? Act like you have sometimes.” “I’ve finished all my work, ma’am. May I go, please?”
    â€œWould you like a cool drink first?”
    â€œNo, ma’am, thank you, I don’t need a cool drink.”
    He recalls, cursing his own guts as he does, what he thought while she was saying it:
    Thought: What do you want from me? What, huh?
    Thought: Here comes the white boss wife —
    Then, rushing down the long gravel driveway, thought: God damn it, Major Post,