That a people choose to dance is not a mark of simple happiness. That a people still sing is not a picturesque story of their satisfaction. It is art. To this day, the children of the children of the children of the slave South, in ghettoes and hoods across the country, will clap and stomp in unison. They will “cheer,” as the expression goes, and rhyme. They will study for hours how to make their voices careen and their bodies work in tandem precision. They will evade boredom and desperation with the stern discipline of kinetic beauty. We do not know empty hands. Our bodies do not gleam and
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