The Portable Promised Land Read online

  “Is it a holiday?” he said out loud. “Tax day? Voting day? No!” he yelled. “It’s Anti-Christmas!” A small crowd of Negroes was watchin and he screamed louder. “It’s Anti-Christmas! It’s Anti-Christmas!”

  He looked at his crowd and saw they wasn’t lookin directly at him, but jus in front and in back ah him. Then came a loud crack from behind and a blindin pain at the back ah his neck. Sugar Lips fell to his knees. His wrists was handcuffed together and he was heaved into this empty paddy wagon. Punches and kicks and blows and stomps came from all over but there was nothin to see. They came again and again, but Sugar Lips felt no pain cuz he was laughin so loud and hard. They finally let him go cuz they feared him crazy enough to infect the entire prison.

  Sugar Lips found if he moved slow and in straight lines he wouldn’t collide wit folk. He marched all over the Big Red Apple and every place he went he felt deeply at home cuz every place seemed to be Harlem. His days were mo peaceful than he ever could’ve imagined. Negroes lived in Harlem wit a sense ah security and peace and community and freedom they lost soon’s they stepped outside. They felt like Harlem was Negro Heaven, a sortof promised land for them, and for Sugar Lips to feel like he was in the promised land wherever he went made him as blessed as everyone in the Bible added up.

  He didn’t miss playin his horn cuz he was so filled wit a new sense of contentment, and sides, he was busy. Everyone in Harlem heard bout the Negro who couldn’t see whitey and though he couldn’t hardly prove it, they believed it cuz they jus wanted such a thing to be. Sugar Lips became even mo the celebrity than he’d been after he’d cut Bird. His picture made the cover ah Negro Digest. One Saturday night he had dinner wit Gordon Parks, Bill Bojangles Robinson, and Joe Louis at Joe’s Harlem restaurant, then woke up early so he could be special guest at the Sunday service of the legendary Father Divine. And don’t you know, Father Divine invited Sugar Lips up to the pulpit in the middle of his sermon and declared him “the Modern Moses who parts the white waters with nothing but his eyes.” Everywhere he went people crowded round to watch and listen to the man wit the portable promised land.

  Sugar Lips felt it was time to do somethin to share his gift wit alla Harlem. He turned a corner and was on 133rd Street in front of Sum Mo, a bar crowded wit Negroes drinkin conk busters and throwin dice. When he walked in, that crowd hushed up.

  “Harlem, I got something to say!” he called out. “I am Sugar Lips Shinehot!”

  “Well, alright!”

  “I am the coldest thang Harlem ever did see!”

  “That’s right!”

  “I can do things no man has ever done before!”

  “Ya ain’t lied yet!”

  “For months I ain’t seen whitey. I ain’t heard from him at all. Not even a postcard.”

  “Now ya cookin wit gas!”

  “Can I get an amen?!” Sugar Lips roared.

  Sum Mo cheered wildly.

  “So tomorrow,” Sugar Lips said when the uproar calmed down, “I’m gonna show y’all what freedoms Negroes can acquire if you can get the white man out your life! I’ll show you how you’ll feel without that weight!” Sugar Lips paused and then said, “I am going...to fly.”

  Sum Mo was dead silent.

  Sugar Lips had never before thought ah flying, hadn’t considered it until the words came out of his mouth, but soon as he said it he was sure he could do it. “I’m going to show y’all what a Negro can do when he’s freed of the burden of whitey! I’m gonna fly! Tomorrow at noon y’all be out in front of the Apollo and tell a friend! I’m gonna fly! This is something everyone is gonna wanna see. I’m gonna get up there on top of the world-famous Ay-paul-o Thee-ay-ter and sure as my name is Sugar Lips I’m gonna fly!”

  That next day bout five hundred Negroes was standin in the street in front ah the Apollo Theater when Sugar Lips appeared on that roof. He’d played there a few times before his lips got bust up and one them security guys who remembered him helped him find his way up. Now he was alone to get down. Some in the crowd wanted him to fly. For him to fly would be for somethin in all of them to fly. But to some it didn’t matter none. Jus for a Negro to believe he could fly was inspiration nuf. That a Negro could get that much good feelin bout hisself made them feel good. Others felt him flyin would put back some of the glory Harlem was losin and remind the world where Negro Heaven was. And then there was those Negroes who jus got to have the drama in they lives. If some Negro said he was gointa put on a show they was gonna have good seats.

  “I’m about to go up!” Sugar Lips screamed out.

  “Yeah!” everyone cheered.

  “And I may not come down!”

  “YEAH!!”

  “I may just fly away from all this, fly right on up to Heaven and see y’all when you get there. But even if I don’t, I declare this to be a Negro holiday. Flying Day!!”

  The crowd started cheerin even louder a second later, when Sugar Lips stuck his arms out in front of hisself, bent low, leapt up into the air, and screamed out, “I AM HARLEM!!!” Time slowed down for Sugar Lips then and he felt hisself glidin, face first, hangin in the air, not quite flyin but perched out there, eyes shut because he was without a stitch ah fear.

  One Hundred Twenty-Fifth Street held its breath as Sugar Lips hung in the air, they dreams of a Negro flyin seeminly realized. They wanted so much for him to fly that not one of them even moved when, after a few long seconds of hangin, he began fallin, cuz jealous Gravity was snatchin him back, and once she caught hold ah him she pulled harder and harder and he fell faster and faster and the ground raced up to them closed eyes and them mangled lips still sayin, “AAAAHHHH AAAAAMMM HAAARLLLEEEMMMMM!!!!!” And Gravity was bout done pullin and all ready to hand him over to her cousin Death when the day manager of the Apollo, Fat Jimmy, waddled out onto the sidewalk to see why a few hundred Negroes was standin in the street lookin up into the sky above his joint. He looked up jus in time to see Sugar Lips crash right onto him.

  Every so often after that day folk set theyselves to tellin him bout the white man that broke his fall. Sugar Lips never bought they story. “Aw man, go head with that,” he’d say. “I know I gotta work on my landing style.” Now if Sugar Lips could’ve laid eyes on Fat Jimmy he would’ve known he hadn’t really flown. But Sugar Lips needed Fat Jimmy to be able to think that he could fly, jus like Harlem needs the rest ah the island called Manhattan to keep from fallin in the ocean. For quite some time after that Sugar Lips did believe he could fly and that’s a nice thing for a Negro to believe. Yeah, Sugar Lips believed he could fly even after his untimely demise on the second annual Flyin Day. He knows better now. Trust me. I told him. Right after he finished tellin this story to me, Reverend Scratch.

  AFROLEXICOLOGY TODAY’S BIANNUAL LIST OF THE TOP FIFTY WORDS IN AFRICAN-AMERICA

  Broken down by Dr. Noble Truette, Ph.D., Professor of Slanguage, Chairman of the Department of Afrolexicology at Negritude University, and Founder of the Semi-otics of Negritude Hall of Fame Project.

  The wait is over. Here they are: the dialect’s heavyweight champeens. The soul semiotics HNICs. The vernacular’s Big Willies. Afrolexicology Today’s Biannual List of the Top Fifty Words in African-America.

  In the thirty-eight years since Afrolexicology Today began charting the importance of words, we’ve carefully watched the constant flux that is the language of African-America. Every year, old words gain new meanings and new words are created from old ones and some are just built from scratch — as if people are baking fresh words every day, pouring the stories of our history into them like butter into fresh bread. Long after the stories have been lost you can somehow taste them when you put the words in your mouth.

  Words filled with music and fireworks and untranslatability. Words that work like dog whistles — Black whistles — their sound available only to those who can hear at the higher frequencies. Words that fly toward white ears but never make it, falling from the air like lame arrows. Words that zoom into our ears like invisible ICBMs doing h
appy damage on the Black mind.

  For the past three months the board of the Semiotics of Negritude Hall of Fame Project, sixteen scholars from universities around the country, has placed Black English under a microscope to figure out the precise state of this language right now.

  As we considered each word we asked ourselves how many generations, classes, regions, and subcultures of Blackness have embraced the word? Is there an interesting sonic texture to the word? Does it look pretty on a page? Is it a pure onomatopoeia or at least vaguely onomatopoetic? Is it a recontextualizing of an English word, or better, a corruption of an English word, or best, a brand-new creation? Is it so uniquely able to express a feeling or concept that it’s been adopted into contemporary English, or better, has it remained in the Black community and not been adopted into contemporary English because it is impenetrable, simply impossible to be translated in its precise totality? Does the word have grammatical flexibility, usable as noun, verb, and adjective? Is it seminal in communicating a particular piece of the Black experience?

  We are always more impressed with linguistic innovation than with words that represent our culture. Though African-Americans are renowned for our sense of rhythm, it is the concept we have mastered, not the word we have innovated. The word swing, however, in the sense of ‘it don’t mean a thing, if it ain’t got that.. .’ is a linguistic innovation.

  We remain sensitive to fluctuations in common usage as well. The same way whites have historically fled from neighborhoods once Blacks began moving in, we tend to flee from certain words once whites start using them. For example, the word dude was a Top-Ten lock in the 60s and early 70s, but in the 80s it was devoured by white culture. Dude has not been among the Top Fifty in well over a decade.

  Finally, as always, this is not a glossary. A glossary is explicative and it’s simply not possible to give precise and complete meanings for many of these evanescent multi-entendres. The top words, the most seminal ones, are especially adept at defying definition. As verbal scholars and lingual historians, we do our best to provide definitions. As Black people, we know this is ultimately a list for those who know.

  50. Be. [Verb, “He be here.”] Always a nice little thing to toss in, be can Blacken up any sentence. Be is a trickster, though. Easy to misuse, it can make speakers sound foolish, turning the small word into a bellwether.

  49. Bling-bling. [Adjective, “Yo, that Jesus piece is bling-bling!” and verb, “Yo, you peep all that ice he sportin? He blingblinging!”] A word that has bubbled up during the last few years from hiphop-generation Blacks in the South. It means “wearing diamond jewelry” or “generally conspicuous consumption.” The entire board was impressed with its wonderful onomatopoeticness — the two sounds are the sonic representation of the brilliant shine of diamonds in the sun.

  48. Pimp. [Noun, “He’s a pimp,’’ and verb, “Look at him pimpin down the block,” and adjective, “I’m just so pimpalicious!”] The chauvinist implications of the word kept many scholars from voting for it, but this one little syllable represents a job, a mindset, a way of life, a way of walking, a way of talking, a way of dressing, a pejorative, and a high compliment. Variations include pimped down, pimp stride, pimp stroll, pimp shades, pimp roll, pimp steak (a hot dog), pimp sticks, pimpish, pimply, pimpmobile, and parking-lot pimping.

  47. Funky. [Noun, “You is funky,” and adjective, “You dance funky,” and verb, “Now you gittin funky!” Also fonk.] The dual meaning of “something that smells bad” and “something that is essentially soulful” is an interesting collision. Unfortunately, debate led by new members over whether funk and funky were truly two different words or a variation on one word paralyzed our group for an entire week and deeply divided the board, dropping both words lower than ever.

  46. Sometimey. [Adjective, “You never know whether she’ll show up or not. She’s so sometimey.”] A great little corruption that’s difficult to translate. The word moody is partially correct, but an incomplete definition. As yet shows no sign of crossover.

  45. Oreo. [Adjective, “He’s an oreo.”] A person of African descent who has European mores: Black on the outside, white on the inside. After all these years still the leading Black-on-Black pejorative.

  44. Funk.

  43. True. [The affirmation. “That shit was hot!” “ True.”]

  42. Cold.

  41. Peace. A salutation of serenity in a time of violence.

  40. Stylee.

  39. Fresh. Once a Top-Five word, has lost favor in recent years.

  38. Down.

  37. Folk.

  36. Git-down. [Noun and verb, “Ya gotta git-down wit the git-down.”] As Professor Lovejoy-Shuttlesworth said with vote-swaying eloquence, “Any word that’s commonly used twice in the same sentence to mean two different things belongs in the Hall of Fame.”

  35. Hype. [Adjective, “That beat sound hype!”]

  34. Nubian. [Adjective] A great sounding word, pretty to look at, the modern expression of Afrikan pride.

  33. Groove. [Noun, verb, adjective] Represents a tight, rhythmic sound, as well as the experience of being inside that tight rhythm.

  32. Juice. [Noun, “He’s got juice.”] Power. Also liquor.

  31. Co-sign. To agree. “I’ll co-sign that!”

  30. Flow. [Noun, verb, adjective]

  29. Ghetto Celeb. There is simply no single word that captures what this pair does. From an interview with KRS-One: “ Ghetto Celebs have a talent the ghetto respects and get rewarded with heaps of juice, but if you ain’t got skills you could still become a Ghetto Celeb. For the love of status, niggas will do anything. Yo, I heard you robbed a bank and they still ain’t catch you! Ghetto celeb. I heard you was in a shoot-out and two of your niggas got killed, but you killed the two niggas that killed your niggas! Ghetto celeb!”

  28. Irie.

  27. Gwine. [Also gwyne, pronounced goin.] A massive word. From Skip Gates’s Figures in Black:“ Gwine, for instance, is still commonly found in Black speech. It is basically un-translatable, yet, with a little reflection, we must see that the full import of the word goes far beyond its referrant, ‘I am going to,’ and implies far more. Gwine implies not only a filial devotion to a moral order but also the completion, the restoration, of harmony in what had heretofore been a universe out of step somehow.... Gwine connotes unshakeable determination.... leaves no room for doubt, for question, for vacillation....With gwine, people accept their primal place in the bosom of God.”

  26. Ghetto Fabulous.

  25. Brother / Sister. Words that remind us we are family, that our family ties have been rebuilt along different lines.

  24. Tain’t. From John Edgar Wideman’s New Yorker essay “Playing Dennis Rodman”: “I knew the word tain’t. Old people used it, mainly; it was their way of contracting ‘it ain’t’ to one emphatic beat, a sound for saying ‘it is not’ in African-American vernacular, but also for saying much more, depending on tone, timing, and inflection. But I’d never heard tain’t used to refer to female anatomy — not the front door or the back door, but a mysteriously alluring, unclassifiable, scary region between a woman’s legs (‘ Tain’t pussy and tain’t asshole, it’s just the tain’t,’ to quote Walter Bentley) — until a bunch of us were sitting on somebody’s stoop listening to Big Walt, aka Porky.”

  23 Mojo.

  22. Vodou (also voodou, voudou, vodoun, vodun, vaudoo, vaudou, voodoo, and hoodoo).

  21. Ain’t. Lingual scholars still have yet to determine what two words this staple of English was originally contracting. Possibly “is not,” maybe “are not,” or neither.

  20. Nappy. A general signifier for all things Black.

  19. Jive. What would we do without jive? Attach it to hand–, –talkin, –turkey, –time, –ass, and a slew of others. A word as useful as those $19.95 Ginsu knives. And plus, just look at it. It’s beautiful!

  18. Kinky. An adjective modifying hair, sex, and possibly one’s entire persona, the word implies that Black sexuality is innately wi
ld.

  17. Homie. A corruption of the African-American linguistic innovation homeboy [homeboy to homes to homie], it means “a person who is close to you,” conveying the sense that people make the home base, not things or places. A very African concept.

  16. Biscuits. A word for an essential bit of soul food became a word for a woman’s ass, an essential part of Black womanliness. (Also means “a weak man who can be robbed easily.”) What can better show the depth of a man’s desire for something of his mother in his woman?

  15. Strangé. [Pronounced “Strawn- jay!,” with an emphasis on the second syllable.] An exaltation commemorating extreme beauty, aesthetic triumph, gigantic flavor, or extreme Blackness, the word is always said with an exclamation point. Still, the entire sense of it is difficult to capture on paper. Popularized by Grace Jones in Boomerang.

  14. Bad. It means “good” — “That song is bad!” Inverts the traditional meaning of the word, putting a contextual demand on the listener because only if you’re listening with a Black ear will you know whether the speaker says bad meaning “bad” or bad meaning “good.” As well, it represents the upside-downness of the Black universe, a world where bad is good.

  13. Fade. A haircut (the fade), an instrument in hiphop (the fader), a shot in basketball (fade away), or being high or drunk (he’s faded).

  12. Boogie. [Noun, adjective, verb] From the Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy to Boogie Wonderland to the Boogie Down Bronx, ggthis is a seminal word for us. A dance, a scary guy, sexual intercourse, a call to move on a dance floor and to hurry up at home, a name for a place or a person. So much is accomplished by these two funny little syllables.

  11. Game. [Noun, “The game is to be sold...,” and adjective, “He’s got game,” and verb, “He’s gaming you.”] A book in a word, it suggests the world has rules to be learned and subverted.

  10. Cool. A seminal encapsulation of how to survive as an African-American: keep your head under pressure. Exercise self-control. Don’t get hot. Be cool.