The Women of Brewster Place

"Mrs. Browne: You could afford much more if you hadn't dropped out of college. Kiswana: I knew it, I knew you'd get around to that. You'll just never understand, will you? Mrs. Browne: Understand what, baby? Kiswana: That my place is here with my people. Mrs. Browne: Melanie, what help could you possibly be to these people while you're living hand-to-mouth on a file clerk's check? Kiswana: At least I'm here with day-to-day contact with my people, instead of being like you and Daddy and sitting over at Linden Hills with a terminal case of middle-class amnesia. Mrs. Browne: You don't have to live in the slums to care, Melanie. You don't have to try to be something you're not. Kiswana: God, I can't stand this! [she gets up to stand in front of Mrs. Browne] Kiswana: Trying to be something I'm not? Trying to be proud of my African heritage? If that's trying to be something I'm not, then that's fine. I'd rather be dead than be like you, a stuck up nigger who's ashamed of being black. Mrs. Browne: My grandmother was a full-blooded Iroquois. My grandfather was a black from a long line of journeymen who lived in Connecticut since the establishment of the colonies. My father was a Bajan who came to this country a cabin boy on a merchant mariner. Kiswana: [quietly] I know all that, Mama. Mrs. Browne: [grabbing her fiercely by her shoulders] Then, know this. I am alive because of the blood of people who never scraped or begged or apologized for what they were. They asked only of one thing of this world: to be allowed to be. And I learned through the blood of these people that black isn't beautiful. It isn't ugly. It isn't kinky hair, It isn't straight hair; Black is just Black. It broke my heart when you changed your name. I gave you my grandmother's name, a woman who bore nine children and educated them all, who held off six white men with a shotgun when they tried to drag one of her sons to jail for "not knowing his place". And you needed to reach into an African dictionary to find a name that would make you proud. When I brought my babies home from the hospital, I swore to whatever gods that would listen, that I would use everything I had or could get so that that my children would be prepared to meet this world on its own terms, so that on one could make them ashamed of what they were or how they looked, whatever they were or however they looked. And Melanie, that's not white or red or black or purple. That's being a mother."

"Mattie Michael: [referring to Etta's Mae's flirtation with Reverend Woods] If you had batted your eyelashes any faster, we'd have had a dust storm up in there. Etta Mae: You said you wanted me to meet some nice men. Well, I met one. Mattie Michael: Etta, I meant a man who'd be serious about settling down with you. Why, you're going on like a schoolgirl. Can't you see what he's got in mind? Etta Mae: [in a cold yet angry tone] The only thing I see is that you're telling me I'm not good enough for a man like that. Oh, no, not Etta Johnson. No upstanding decent man could ever see anything in her but a quick good time. Well, I'll tell you something Mattie Michael. I've always traveled first class, maybe not in the way you'd approve of with all your fine Christian principles, but it's done all right by me. And I'm gonna keep top drawer till I leave this earth. Don't you think I got a mirror? Each year there's a new line to cover. I lay down with this body and get up with it every morning. And each morning it cries for just a little more rest than it did the day before. Well, I'm finally gonna get that rest and it's going to be with a man like Reverend Woods. And you and the rest of those slack-mouthed gossips be damned! They'll be humming a different tune when I show up there the wife of a big preacher. I've always known what they say about me behind my back, but I never thought you were right in there with them."