Isaac's Song by Daniel Black

Author:Daniel Black
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hanover Square Press
Published: 2024-11-19T17:33:02+00:00

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In my African American Lit class, we read Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison. She won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993—the first black woman ever. And, man oh man. That book left me in the clouds.

It’s about a young, troubled black man who discovers that he can fly. In fact, flying is his birthright. I don’t mean in an airplane. I mean his very black body. He realizes, from tracing his family lineage, that he comes from people who could lift their arms and take to the air. What moved me so was that his difficult history didn’t hinder his inheritance. That was new to me—the notion that one’s context doesn’t define one’s possibilities. I had defined myself by the way Dad saw me. Now I was growing my own set of eyes.

I think I believed that, by acquiring knowledge, I was defying Dad. Every so often, I looked over my shoulder, thinking he was following me, hearing me, shaking his head even, as new information corrected all the wrong things he’d said to me.

But he never came. We had parents’ weekend every year, and I told Mom about it, hoping the two of them might surprise me, but they didn’t. I suppose I should admit that I wanted Dad to come. To see me in my element, thriving academically and making friends with all sorts of kids. For the first time in my life, I lived in confidence and assurance that I wasn’t a disappointment. I was where I was supposed to be.

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