But most white people were also on the lookout for a too-bold display by us of their kind of accomplishments, their privilege and plenty, what they considered their racial traits. Most white people were on the lookout, we were told, for what they called these basic racial traits. Too many Negroes, it was said, showed off the wrong things: their loud voices, their brash and garish ways their gift for popular music and dance, for sports rather than the humanities and sciences. Mistakes – bad manners, poor taste, an excess of high spirits – could put you, your parents, and your people at risk Children there were taught that most other Negroes ought to be emulating us when too many of them (out of envy or ignorance) went on behaving in ways that encouraged racial prejudice. Children in Negroland were warned that few Negroes enjoyed privilege or plenty and that most whites would be glad to see them returned to indigence, deference, and subservience. Negroland is my name for a small region of Negro America where residents were sheltered by a certain amount of privilege and plenty. In my Negroland childhood, this was a perilous business. But isn’t all memoir a form of showing off?
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