'Get the fuck away from me. I never heard of such shit.'

 

epub or mobi

She had no expectation of making herself acceptable then, and her contempt for those who tried to conform was profound. Later in life her income would have enabled her to live in style with other successful black entertainers on Long Island, but she had no desire to join them. The black word for those who took on a white style of life was dirty, and Bessie never used the word without dislike. In turn, successful blacks disliked Bessie, because they felt her behaviour endangered their own image of themselves. The crudity of her language, and the unpredictability of her moods, made her seem like a part of the street life they wanted to forget. Bessie continued to enjoy that life: its food, its home-made liquor and its uninhibited parties. Essentially, she was refusing to acknowledge the class system the blacks had set up which put the white world at the unreachable top of the tree. She knew it was a system which had rejected her once and for all when she was thrown out of the chorus line for having too dark a skin.