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Gemini by Nikki Giovanni
The Transcribed Essay
I was minding my own business, skimming the Internet, when I ran across a video of the recently departed Nikki Giovanni interviewing Muhammad Ali in front of a live audience. It took place soon after Ali’s return to the ring after being banned from boxing for three years because he refused to fight in the Vietnam War. Ali had fought and lost to Joe Frazier in their first fight. The interview was about Ali, and we didn’t see Nikki Giovanni shine. She was a good host and made the interview all about her guest.
The interview was televised, and the segment following was a song by the Delfonics, which was edited out of the YouTube video. Nikki returned to read the essay “Gemini” from her book. If you’ve never heard or read this essay, I invite you to do so. It will be impossible not to consider her words long after she’s finished.
“I wrote a book called Gemini sort of to bring people up to date, at least on what I think I am, which is not quite, I’m sure,e the whole truth, it never is no reason I should be any different,
I got my fantasies, so I wanted, I wanted to read a part of the essay Gemini from the book Gemini, trying to deal with us, but if Black men ever would decide to define a Black man in Black terms, I think they would have different expectations of us as women.
