SOURCE: "On Black Label," in Critical Perspectives on Léon-Gontran Damas, edited by Keith Q. Warner, Three Continents Press, 1988, pp. 111-14.

Ita is a Nigerian educator and critic. In the following essay, which was originally published in the journal African Arts/Arts d'Afrique in 1970, he remarks on the themes of Black-Label and asserts that the poem has been largely misunderstood in the English-speaking world.

Black Label has, in the English-speaking world, the reputation of being a crude glorification of blackness, and a rather unintelligent example of black racialism. This undeservedly bad reputation is based on the fact, that of the whole poem sequence, the only part generally known to the English-speaking public are the following lines:

       The White will never be negro
       for beauty is negro
       and negro is wisdom
       for endurance is negro
       and negro is courage
       for patience is negro
       and negro is irony
       for charm...