The Brown Menagerie
Media: Glaze Ceramic & Aerosol Paint
Dimension: 10 in X 6 in X 15 In
Year: 2015
Photo by David Gary Lloyd
Brown is the color of rich soil. It is a composite color made by combining red, black, and yellow. The color is widely seen in human hair color, eye color, and skin pigmentation. It is also, according to public opinion surveys in Europe and the United States, the least favorite color of the public. “The Brown Menagerie” examines facets of race, sexism, and fashion through an Afro-Caribbean lens.
—
For Aunt Jemima
By Morel Doucet
Them torpedo titties
hang like two calla lilies
over blue flames
soaked in bacon grease and eggs.
Don’t forget the hot sauce - taste the tip.
Don’t’ forget the pancakes - taste the syrup.
Don’t forget the sadness, taste the pain -
taste the pain of the minstrel shows.
The sun a bounty of ebonics
shines its rays like a room full of too many windows opened to the outside world. Them clouds can’t protect you
no matter how many times you wash
the rain out of them. Go seek day
with servile cheeks spread like first Sunday’s.
They curse you vile ebony
like the dim morning laughter
to the midnight hangings of the antebellum south.
White folks be talkn’ bout yous remind them of home.
Yet yous been homeless,
without a home. Your evenings are spent hiding behind their back door kitchens and dirty wardrobes.
When all the gold fell from the sun
he gave you that Carolina skin called Negro,
but children marvel at how
you make slavery taste so good.
Tightrope - balancing the kitchen like
chefs in a potter‘s dance,
frying chicken is an art form –
you know your craft well.
They thought you be that
monkey-dress-hood-rat
singing the blue jay’s blue and
cleaning their houses.
Be careful black maiden that your backbone
doesn’t become dust
lost to sand-like time does when he
becomes tired of hour.
Your liberation will come when
the stars of Babylon lean
on your front porch and the wind
scratches your dreams at night.