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problem, not mine.
    I’m better off with friends like Diondra and Janelle who know I’m more than what I look like. They know I’ve got a brain, and I know how to use it. They’re no dummies either. That’s why I asked Mr. Ward if the three of us could do a group project on Women of the Harlem Renaissance for extra credit. We had our first meeting at my house.
    “Can we do Zora Neale Hurston?” asked Janelle. “I know we read Their Eyes Were Watching God in class, but she wrote a bunch of other stuff too.”
    “You’re right,” I said. “Good idea.” I picked up my pad and wrote Z. Hurston at the top. “Okay. That’s a good start, but I think we should cover some women you don’t hear so much about.”
    “Like?”
    “Georgia Douglas Johnson. I read some of her work in a book called 3000 Years of Black Poetry. I’d never heard of her before, and I bet nobody else in class has either.”
    “Cool,” said Diondra. “Maybe I should read that book and see if I can get a couple of ideas.”
    “You can borrow it from the library,” I said. “Soon as I return it, that is.” We all laughed. I’m notorious for turning library books in late. “Meanwhile, Diondra, you can start working on portraits of these sisters so we can use them for our report covers when we’re done.”
    I didn’t wait for her to volunteer, because I knew she wouldn’t. For somebody who has talent, she spends an awful lot of energy hiding it. But I figure if enough people tell her she’s good, she’ll start believing it. That means people actually have to see her work. I’m going to make sure they do, even if I have to keep volunteering her for projects ’til we graduate. She’s not about to say no to me. She knows I’m stubborn when I want something.
    “Fine,” says Diondra. “I’ll do the portraits, but don’t look at me when Mr. Ward sees those report covers and busts out laughing.”
    “Laughing? What do you mean, laughing?” Janelle and I looked at each other. I nodded, and on the count of three, we jumped on Diondra and tickled her ’til tears of laughter squirted out of her eyes.
    Them’s my girls. They don’t care what I look like. They know the only difference between my color and theirs is that the slave master who owned my family raped my great-great-grandma instead of theirs. And like my dad says, that ain’t nothing to celebrate or be stuck up about.

OPEN MIKE
    For the Record
    BY TANISHA SCOTT
     
     
    It’s the blood that tells:
slaves black as Mississippi mud
ring the trunk
of my family tree.
They speak through me
Black as they want to be.
The slaver’s white drop
couldn’t stop the spread
of African cells.
They’re bred
in the bone,
past the slick hair,
the too-fair skin.
So don’t tell me
I can’t fit in.
My heart beats
like a talking drum,
my mom hums to Bessie
just like yours,
the brothers in my dreams
are pure ebony,
and blue-black grandmother arms
like the ones
that cradled my ancestors
have often cradled me.

Tyrone
    Now I know why the sista hisses every time I call her “caramel cutie.” That’d be the last thing she wants to hear! She’s proud of her African self, and I’m down with that. That’s why I be wearing my kufi every chance I get.
    I wonder if the sista’s into African music. I gotta ask her about that sometime. Maybe I could hook up some African drum music to go with her poetry for the assembly Teach told us about. She could read her stuff, and I could play DJ. Yeah! I could get into that.

Devon
    I look up from my lunch tray and catch Tanisha’s eye while she stands in the cafeteria line. We nod.
    “Yo, brotha,” says Tyrone, thinking I’m nodding to him. I wave and turn away.
    Tanisha is one fine sister, but I never say that to her face. She gets tired of hearing it from all the other guys. They look at her and that’s all they see, what’s on the surface. That’s what she told me when we talked once after Open Mike Friday. We talked about