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The Dirt-Eaters

By Elizabeth Alexander b. 1962 Elizabeth Alexander

“Southern Tradition of Eating Dirt Shows
Signs of Waning”
—headline, New York Times, 2/14/84

tra

dition

wanes

I read

from North

ern South:

D.C.

Never ate

dirt

but I lay

on Great-

grandma’s

grave

when I

was small.

“Most cultures

have passed

through

a phase

of earth-

eating

most pre

valent today

among

rural

Southern

black

women.”

Geo

phagy:

the practice

of eating

earthy matter

esp. clay

or chalk.

(Shoe-

boxed dirt

shipped North

to kin)

The gos

sips said

that my great-

grand

ma got real

pale when she

was preg

nant:

“Musta ate

chalk,

Musta ate

starch, cuz

why else

did her

babies

look

so white?”

The Ex

pert: “In ano

ther gener

ation I

sus

pect it will dis

appear al

together.”

Miss Fannie Glass

of Creuger, Miss.:

“I wish

I had

some dirt

right now.”

Her smile

famili

ar as the

smell

dirt.

Source: The Venus Hottentot (Graywolf Press, 2004)

Biography

Elizabeth Alexander was born in Harlem, New York, but grew up in Washington, DC, the daughter of former United States Secretary of the Army and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission chairman, Clifford Alexander Jr. She holds degrees from Yale, Boston University and the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned her PhD. Currently the chair of African American Studies at Yale, Alexander is a highly respected teacher and . . .

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