That's been my routine for years and years... Up early before everybody else, before I get connected, before I get bugged, before I have obligations. Get the writing done first, then be the person I want to be in other ways after that.
Silence marks time, saturates and shapes African-American art. Silences structure our music, fill the spaces - point, counterpoint - of rhythm, cadence, phrasing.
My aunt Geraldine was the unofficial historian and storyteller. She had all the information about family members and the gossip that came out of the church because we were very much part of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. At family gatherings, the older folk had the floor, had pride of place, and it was their stories I remember.
All my life, I've been very aware of my body. I have always used it as a gauge of things. When I look at a person, and I see their body, that's the beginning of knowledge about them. Furthermore, I respect the body.
I don't understand why black people have been so quiescent, so passive over the hundreds of years of American history. Why hasn't there been more violence, more armed struggle? I know answers to some of that, but it seems to me it's an issue of faith, an abiding faith in some sort of great beyond, or great spirit, or even in the American dream.
Writers transform: they throw a hand grenade into the notion of reality that people carry around in their heads. That's very dangerous, very destructive, but not to do it means you are satisfied with the status quo - and that's a kind of danger as well, because a kind of violence is already being perpetuated.
Writing 'Hoop Roots' was a substitute or a surrogate activity. I can't play anymore - my body won't cooperate - so in the writing of the book, I was looking to tell a good story about my life and about basketball, but I was also looking to entertain myself the way that I entertain myself when I play.
What I wanted to do in talking about basketball in 'Hoop Roots' was retrieve the game as something to participate in, not to watch.
I write what I want to write, and then, when it's finished, I use my judgment to see whether or not I think it's intrusive. If it is problematic, then I ask those involved. I won't necessarily do what they say. But I do consult. I haven't had too many problems. Nobody's really gotten angry at me. Nobody, as far as I know, has felt betrayed.
A lot of people think the best work I've done was nonfiction - the 'Brothers and Keepers' book. But I think of myself as a fiction writer. And I think, if my work is put in perspective, all the books would be a continual questioning of what's true and what's not true, what's documented and what's not documented.
My father was a veteran. He fought in World War II. He was a patriot. On the other hand, he had no illusions whatsoever about how Uncle Sam had mistreated him and other black soldiers.
Seamless, careful, by-the-book performance provides no evidence of what the spider's thinking about the fly enmeshed in its web.
I often want things to make definite statements. If I order onions sliced thinly on my hamburger, I don't want them to come out sort of medium. But that doesn't mean it's a reasonable desire, in all things.
Too much is made for us; too much is given to us - even those of us who are underprivileged. The poverty is given to us. The difficulties are given to us.
