Alexandra Moore - Flashy Habits lyrics

The expression of the Negro has always been outward, directed at everything outside of him. In today's world this can be seen in how the black community likes to “wear” its money in an expression of wealth, status, and even self-worth, despite the fact that it is directed at those pa**ing by. The clothes, the shoes, the cars, all represent the Negro expression of what Zora Neale Hurston calls “The Will to Adorn”. In the modern world we see this with how far the black penny can stretch, even more so, how that money is being spent in a sense of priority. But back in the slave times and later into the Harlem Renaissance era, “adorning” could be seen in the use of words. Literature was the black penny of this time, and author's of this era flaunted their smarts with the flow of their diction like rappers of today with the finest of gold chains. This timeline is a tracing of that practice. 1845-Narrative of the life of Frederick Dougla** is published “…I seized Covey hard by the throat; and as I did so, I rose. He held on to me, and I to him. My resistance was so entirely unexpected, that Covey seemed taken all aback” 1872 – Frances E.W. Harper' s poem “Learning to Read” published “But as I was rising sixty, I had no time to wait. So I got a pair of gla**es, And straight to work I went And never stopped till I could read Then I got a little cabin – A place to call my own – And I felt as independent As the queen upon her throne.” 1896 – Paul Laurence Dunbar's poem “We wear the mask” is published “Why should the world be overwise, In counting all our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only see us, while We wear the mask” 1899 – Paul Laurence Dunbar's poem “Her thoughts and His” is published “The gray of the sea, and the gray of the sky, A glimpse of the moon like a half-closed eye. The gleam on the waves and the light on the land, A thrill in my heart, - and – my sweetheart's hand.” 1900 – Booker T. Washington's essay Up from Slavery is published “…when we rid ourselves of prejudice, or racial feeling, and looks facts in the face, we must acknowledge that, notwithstanding the cruelty and moral wrong of slavery, the ten million Negroes inhabiting this country, who themselves or whose ancestors went through the school of American slavery, are in a stronger and more hopeful condition, materially, intellectually, morally, and religiously, than is true of an equal number of black people in any other portion of the globe” 1903 – W.E.B Du Bois' essay Souls of Black Folk is published “…the ridicule and systematic humiliation, the distortion of fact and wanton license of fancy, the cynical ignoring of the better and the boisterous welcoming of the worse, the all-pervading desire to inculcate the design disdain for everything black, from Toussaint to the devil, - before this there rises a sickening despair that would disarm and discourage any nation save that black host to whom ‘discouragement' is an unwritten word” 1906 – Paul Laurence Dunbar publishes his poem “Philosophy” “Dat 's all right, I ain't a-sputin' not a t'ing dat soun's lak fac', But you don't ketch folks a-grinnin' wid a misery in de back; An' you don't fin' dem a-smilin' w'en dey 's hongry ez kin be, Leastways, dat 's how human natur' allus seems to 'pear to me.” 1907 – W.E.B. Du Bois publishes his poem “The Song of the Smoke” “I am the Smoke King, I am black! I am darkening with song, I am hearkening to wrong! I will be black as the blackness can – The blacker the mantle, the mightier the man!”