“I’m Ms. Angelou.”
“Miss Jackson, if you’re nasty.”
“I’m your mother, I’m your auntie, I’m your teacher, I’m your professor.”
Huh?
Not a fan of ‘Ms. Angelou’ but in this case she may be correct.
That was just Maya being Maya, or whatever her real name was.
I attended a few poetry readings that Maya read at back in Detroit. She was entertaining at such occasions, but even offstage, she remained somewhat pompous and brusque around us regular people. That was okay. I never expected anything more from her.
I never saw her as an icon, but simply as a good teller of stories and analogies. All the time I was in her presence, I never forgot that she started out as a Hooker. That was always in the back of my mind.
She would have loved the internet, and would have seen herself as an Influencer. An “Influencer” is a real profession nowadays. You show a product on YouTube, or talk about it in your blog, and you influence other people to try it out too.
Maya was taught very well by her elders when she was growing up. You respected your elders. They were not like your friends, you did not refer to them on a firt name basis. It was most often most true with elders in official positions, elders in the family, and elders you just met.
I am sure in her early years, that type of respectful language habits helped her “cross the color line”, which surely was a real line more often when she was growing up and in her early adulthood.
It really is nothing more than this.
Jack Dorsey's contribution to humanity was creating a forum that allows hundreds of millions of people around the world the opportunity to tell each other to go fornicate themselves.
Twitter is a cesspool with no redeeming value and yes, I have an account.
Our next door neighbors came by once when we were eating and came in our kitchen. I was about 10 years old. (We were all no-knock neighbors back in the day) I greeted him as Bill and my mother jumped on me so fast.
The neighbor wasn’t upset at all but my mom corrected me properly on the spot and I think showing deference to elders is a value we have been losing.
No, you ain't.
Both sides are wrong. The girl should not have addressed her by her first name and Angelou should not have tried to make herself more than she is.
Bobby Knight lost his job at Indiana, because a student went up to him and said “Hey, Knight, what’s up?”
Bobby grabbed him by the arm and told him, “Show me some f-—ing respect. I’m older than you.”
Unless it’s on a bathroom stall and speaks of a woman’s abilities or a man’s anatomy, it ain’t poetry. But hey, that’s just me.
I worked at a university years ago, & Maya Angelou was invited by the student union to speak. We had the usual black activists in the ‘Black Student Union.’ I went to her talk & one of those activists stood up to ask her if all Blacks should go to Africa for a while (as she had done) so as to understand what it was like to live in an all-black country. Maya’s answer was great: “The only thing you will find from living in Africa is that you are an AMERICAN.”
Kudos to Ms. Angelou in trying to teach respect to a population who were growing up without such discipline........
If any vets here object to her response, how many of them actually had the balls to call their basic training DI by his first name?.........LOL!
Reminds me of a line from Chinatown:
“I’m old. Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.”
Lot of truth there.
Maya was a cupcake compared to Ms. Nina Simone.
I was taught to address my parents’ friends as Mr. or Mrs., and if they’re close friends, Uncle or Aunt. Never presume to use their first name, until you’re invited to do so.
It might help if any of these articles told us who this person is and why we should care. Because I don’t know, and therefore I don’t care!
She should be called Ms Angelou or even Ms Maya. Personally though, I will call Our current President, Trump, Donald Trump, President Trump, Sir, etc. and I think The Donald would love them all.
Well darn...somebody should just dig her up and kick her ass. That’ll show her.
Angelou really should have checked her Black privilege. /sarc
She was nasty and belittling to that poor girl. The girl immediately corrected herself, but that wasn’t enough for nasty Maya. She humiliated that girl.
Shame on you FReelers who are siding with this no talent leftie hack.