A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance

by Hanif Abdurraqib

A people cannot only see themselves suffering, lest they believe themselves only worthy of pain, or only celebrated when that pain is overcome. Cornelius had a vision for Black people that was about movement on their own time, for their own purpose, and not in response to what a country might do for, or to, them.

As time passes, the societal grasp on what the sins of the past were become clearer and more set in stone, laid down as markers of what not to repeat—even as some of those sins are repeated.