BLACK ON BLACK
I am my ancestors' wildest dreams.
I know it has been a while, it was important for me to press the pause button and reset. Take a step back from everything and process everything that is going on and everything that has been going on. Headlines after headlines, hashtags after hashtags a new one everyday, each one as horrific as the other. Looking at self, and facing inward to heal the brokenness that kept on being shattered with every resurfaced video, every post was something that I needed to do. Self care should be written in capital letters. Take a break, take a step back, your spirit will thank you for it.
Being black means living a reality that non black people might be able to empathise with but never fully understand. They can try and walk a mile in our shoes but it still doesn’t get close to the every day experience black people go through, from kindergarten and nursery rhymes that had racism written all over it all the way to being the only black kid in class and answering naive questions about why I was dark but the palms of my hands were white, fast forward to applying for jobs and knowing that the call back might not come because of the foreign name or better yet not adding a picture to your resume because you don’t want to land on the no pile before you even had the chance to introduce yourself personally. Having people comment on your hair, sliding their hands through your hair because of how "exotic" it looks. Working twice as hard from jump because of the color of your skin and knowing that even though we are all the same it is not like that in the world we live in. There are stones that are laid in our way from the day we were born, making it clear that we won’t and can’t enjoy the same privilege as others do. Sounds tiring? Try living it day in and day out. Try adding being a woman to the equation. Add sexism, add rape, add misogyny, add more inequality due to gender and race. Sometimes I wonder how black women still wake up, dress up, show up and show out every single day. Sprinkling black girl magic against all odds. Whew the excellence!
Rooting for everybody black.
There is a shift happening, a shift that is much more than a black square, much more than a “cute” tweet from corporate companies talking about how “bad” racism is, posting Martin Luther King quotes thinking they have done their part in “making the world a better place” but not having a single black person in leadership roles. There’s a shift happening among black people educating themselves beyond the books that were given to us in history class, there are protests happening and black people stepping into their blackness and greatness, building and growing and not letting systemic racism, daily racism, between the line racism and obvious racism get us down. Silence is no longer an option, not in terms of racism, not when it comes to abuse, not when it comes to demanding justice to be served, not when it comes to sisters getting raped. We are loud, we are vocal, we are black and we are proud to be black.Unapologetically, black.
This gives me hope for a better today and tomorrow for us, for our children and the many generations after that. Let us keep protesting, keep posting, keep sharing awareness, keep speaking up, keep demanding justice. Let us hold on to hope and act on it. Better days are ahead of us. We may fall down but if history and everyday life has taught us one thing it is that we will always get back up again, because we are resilient af.
Love,
Maame