If He Hollers Let Him Go

The white folks had sure brought their white to work with them that morning.

Then all at once I felt sorry for him. Sorry for anybody who had to be that scared and keep on living.

That made her doubly dangerous because she thought about Negro men. I could tell that the first time I saw her. She wanted them to run after her. She expected it, demanded it as her due. I could imagine her teasing them with her body, showing her bare thighs and breasts. Then having them lynched for looking.

So it wasn't that Madge was white; it was the way she used it.

But I just couldn't walk into this woman with so much white inside her.

She was pure white Texas. And I was black. And a white man was standing there. I never knew before how good a job the white folks had done on me.

All I could see was her standing there between me and my manhood.

I'm afraid to die, that's my trouble. Afraid of getting hurt. Acting a fool. Being made ridiculous. Being offended, ignored, despised. Afraid to make the one final decision in my soul that would settle everything one way or another forever.

It gave me a personal pride to have her for my girl. And then I was proud of her too. Proud of the way she looked, the appearance she made among white people; proud of what she demanded from white people, and the credit they gave her; and her position and prestige among her own people.

We're a wonderful, goddamned race, I thought. Simple-minded, generous, sympathetic sons of bitches. We're sorry for everybody but ourselves; the worse the white folks treat us the more we love 'em.