If Beale Street Could Talk

by James Baldwin

I’ve never come across any shame down here, except shame like mine, except the shame of the hardworking black ladies, who call me Daughter, and the shame of proud Puerto Ricans, who don’t understand what’s happened—no one who speaks to them speaks Spanish, for example—and who are ashamed that they have loved ones in jail. But they are wrong to be ashamed. The people responsible for these jails should be ashamed.

The Oberon chick was paid, at least, for her disquieting resemblance to an egg.