Sublime

The fact is, “exceptional Negroes” have always been a staple of an apartheid-like educational system that separates the “gifted” from the “normal,” and both from the “naughty” or “underachieving.” Sticks and stones will only break my bones, but words can lift or crush me.

how Blackness is selectively celebrated (and contained) within the white imagination.

Paradoxically, many of these disciplinary policies are akin to the progressive vision espoused by eugenicists like Karl Pearson, justifying harsh discipline as a means to “close academic disparities.” Schooling becomes standardized testing without creative expression, arbitrary rules without room to breathe, Black Excellence without Black Joy.

He is a white man, the kind that Shay defines with the Malagasy word vazaha, although the word simply means foreigner, and she herself can also be defined that way. But in her mind the word denotes the kind of tropic-bespoiled white man who hangs out in the Fleur des Îles café and, in Shay’s opinion, is far too often a guest at the Red House.

The teacher looked at her, looked away, and instead called on a White hand as soon as it was raised. As the Black girl’s arm came down, I could see her head going down. As I saw her head going down, I could see her spirits going down. I turned and looked up at the teacher, who, of course, was not looking at me. She was too busy engaging a favored W