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

by Hanif Abdurraqib

Jayson tells me I can’t go wrong with Cetaphil as a base. All I know is that I’ve had the good fortune of having largely great skin for three decades, with no real work put into it, and I’m looking to see what might be the fullest potential for my skin’s immortality. I come from an ageless people, after all. At most Black functions I’ve been to, someone pulls me aside, points at some alleged elder, and asks me to guess how old this elder is. When I guess too young, they throw out some age bordering on the absurd, one that seems even more foolish as the sunlight gallops across an absence of wrinkles during a vigorous dance, or a laugh that rattles the wind. I most love the mythology of the ageless Blacks, how it truly doesn’t crack unless you give yourself over to do the bidding of some evil. Like we’ve all been blessed but might have to sell ourselves to the devil, who surely will want his, and in return, the aging process starts and accelerates. Stacey Dash didn’t look a day over twenty-five when she was running in slow motion through the Chicago airport, trailed by Kanye West in a music video. But one year working for Fox News, and the people say she’s looking every minute of her age, and the decade she kept at arm’s length all that time has finally come, and lord, did it come to collect. All I know is I’m gonna be on the wrong side of thirty soon, and I’m trying to keep my skin and my spirit clean.