On a recent trip back to my hometown I met a young lady from New Orleans who now resides in a small town in Colorado. Here we are going into the second year after Katrina and still so many from the not so well off neighborhoods of the crescent city are still living elsewhere.
As I sat on a rental car shuttle on the way to pick up my ride I could not help expressing my excitement about being back in the south and in particular some place warm.So I started a conversation with a few passengers seated around me.The talk went on I turned towards the only black member of the group stating to her she resembled a young Sheryl Swoopes who plays for the Houston Comets of the WNBA. She looked at me with a slightly dimpled smile and said she had never heard of her.I immediately thought of the Steely Dan song hey nineteen.That was not the part of
the conversation that troubled me though.
Just a few minutes before this her partners sister explained to me that they did not want to leave the "big easy" but do to the circumstances of course they had no choice. While the family had reservations about going to this small town in "the wilds of" Colorado it was better than the alternative which was becoming homeless.
Continuing to try and make conversation I asked them how they liked the area now.The brother in law chimed in he was pleasantly surprised and since they had a toddler it was a good place to raise their son.The sister on the other hand started by saying that the two young ladies seated to my left were getting along fine and they were quit popular as the only interracial lesbian couple in town. This came as a candid response and frankly I had not noticed or really cared but often my normal talkative southern nature leads me down streets better left unwalked. Not heeding to my own little alarm system that tells me stop here and now, I asked the young black lady
if the lack of diversity there besides herself bothered her.The response was no she did not miss blacks. Her partner, who was all of nineteen, jumped in to say she most certainly did miss black people and in fact she wondered where they were and made a point to ask around about it. I laughed at this as I commented about a similar occurrence.I told a story from my not so long ago past. I lived in a small town where I could go weeks without seeing another brown face besides my own, making a person of coloring siting a very big event for me. I connected to this young ladies feelings having shared a "where are they moment" as I refer to my cultural connection and once again it proves my theory on being linked to each other beyond any boundaries self imposed or other wise.
However today I thank her black partner too. The young woman gave me a heart felt response,one filled with a youthful exhilaration for the new and all the possibilities it could bring.One I also feel was probably born out of her very short life experiences that will continue to grow in maturity. Maybe her lessons so far dealt more with what is so wrong in the black community.She had not come up in a time like I did where legal segregation made every social economic level in the community close.We might not have hob nobbed with those on sugar hill but we saw them and knew that we were not all the constant ugly images even in success that we are projected to be.
Of course I will never know for sure but in that moment my heart felt a pang for me more than her. I know and understand what she said but I wondered to if she would grow into the kind of black person who would always feel that way. It seems to me I failed on that day myself.I was so shocked I gave a knee jerk response. I asked what have they taught you in school beyond Martin,Malcolm and Sojourna followed by saying be sure to get a college education no matter what.I went on about not being fouled by peoples initial kindness that she will have to make it in a world that does not really have much love for black women especially those of us who are darker.Even worst I said when you become a little older there are lessons you will discover and while its nice to jump the fence for a while never forget that to a wolf you are just a separated part of the flock. Way to much to lay on a kid I didn't know,who was on vacation and more importantly had more class than me on that day by not saying another word and hoping to get off that shuttle and be rid of me.
I'm not afraid to admit my mistakes, still I am more motivated not to repeat them.Today's youngsters can not be talked to like I was, there are other approaches and I already know and use them sometimes.My words came from a place I felt I was beyond.That constant reality check black give themselves. Was I reacting out of the hurt from yet another skin folk rejection of being around their own and was this an offense to be taken lightly or handled as I did.Just another day in the life of sister trying.The more I learn about other folks, the more I learn about me.
Picture of the month
Life is circular
Tuesday, January 9, 2007
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
UHURU !
Happy new year all.I wanted to start of the 2007 with some black woman liberation.
I have had my dreads for some time now and every day I feel blessed to have developed a relationship with my hair.Actually the relationship is more about having released the woman I need to be from the inside out. Somehow I knew I needed to do this way back in the day at the ripe old age of seven,but let me back up a bit.
It was 1970 something, and the black power movement was in full swing. My mother had taken me shopping and as we sat in the car getting ready to pull off two females walked out of a store in front of us.Both these women were beautiful brown skin
sisters dressed in green military style trench coats, sporting combat boots and bald heads! Now even as a child I was in awe of the beauty of their baldness.I didn't have the words but I saw true freedom in those sisters. They had those big ear rings on and lip stick but they walked with a sense of assuredness,they owned themselves.
Although my mother called them a name I had never heard of "bulldykes" I knew that even though I didn't want to be bald I did want that sense of ownership of self they had. Their image never left me,even as I type today over thirty plus years later I still see them plain as day.
Just before New Years I was in Walmart and someone complimented me on "my girls".
Yes I call them sisters but no they don't have names.Back on topic, as we talked I learned that she had a friend who passed over a few months back I think in October.
This woman had dreads too, in fact she loved them.They had come to mean so much to her she changed her name to free legally. Whenever a person called her by the old name she corrected them her friend remembered.I nodded my head in agreement I certainly knew the joy she was feeling and now I know the power and strength those ladies from my past must have felt too.
I will never know if they were part of some "radical" group, proud dykes, rebellious college students or all the above.All I know is seeing them on that day
changed my life.No matter what anyone said about conforming, I discovered there were people out in the world doing their thing to hell with societies views. I went home
to the picture of MLK at the top of the stairs in our hallway. The thinking Martin picture I liked to called it.In that place in time with so many black voices calling for justice for our community,two black women reached out and touched me.They sent a message without saying a word the meaning of which I did not feel until one day in October three years ago.
I turned my afro into god knows how many little knobs on my way to living free. I had already endured the sneers from other black folk concerning my one inch fro.A weight was lifted off my head having let go of that bad perm with the little bald spot and one last "long" strain of hair acting as a comb over! In return I found
spiritual peace.Every black woman encounters hair dilemmas,even those with straight hair.We should not be held prisoners by what we have or don't have.So if I say it a million times in this space I will say it again. Every black woman's voice needs to be heard instead of her thoughts being perceived from the way she looks and is portrayed in the media.I'm talking both the mainstream and our own,for once lets just tell our own stories.That to me is the most powerful of all quest.
In more ways than one our lives reflect out through our hair not vice versa. When we are stressed it's texture can change,when we age it greys,the list goes on and on.Is it any wonder we find true liberation by deciding how we present our pride and glory or lack of it to the world.
I have had my dreads for some time now and every day I feel blessed to have developed a relationship with my hair.Actually the relationship is more about having released the woman I need to be from the inside out. Somehow I knew I needed to do this way back in the day at the ripe old age of seven,but let me back up a bit.
It was 1970 something, and the black power movement was in full swing. My mother had taken me shopping and as we sat in the car getting ready to pull off two females walked out of a store in front of us.Both these women were beautiful brown skin
sisters dressed in green military style trench coats, sporting combat boots and bald heads! Now even as a child I was in awe of the beauty of their baldness.I didn't have the words but I saw true freedom in those sisters. They had those big ear rings on and lip stick but they walked with a sense of assuredness,they owned themselves.
Although my mother called them a name I had never heard of "bulldykes" I knew that even though I didn't want to be bald I did want that sense of ownership of self they had. Their image never left me,even as I type today over thirty plus years later I still see them plain as day.
Just before New Years I was in Walmart and someone complimented me on "my girls".
Yes I call them sisters but no they don't have names.Back on topic, as we talked I learned that she had a friend who passed over a few months back I think in October.
This woman had dreads too, in fact she loved them.They had come to mean so much to her she changed her name to free legally. Whenever a person called her by the old name she corrected them her friend remembered.I nodded my head in agreement I certainly knew the joy she was feeling and now I know the power and strength those ladies from my past must have felt too.
I will never know if they were part of some "radical" group, proud dykes, rebellious college students or all the above.All I know is seeing them on that day
changed my life.No matter what anyone said about conforming, I discovered there were people out in the world doing their thing to hell with societies views. I went home
to the picture of MLK at the top of the stairs in our hallway. The thinking Martin picture I liked to called it.In that place in time with so many black voices calling for justice for our community,two black women reached out and touched me.They sent a message without saying a word the meaning of which I did not feel until one day in October three years ago.
I turned my afro into god knows how many little knobs on my way to living free. I had already endured the sneers from other black folk concerning my one inch fro.A weight was lifted off my head having let go of that bad perm with the little bald spot and one last "long" strain of hair acting as a comb over! In return I found
spiritual peace.Every black woman encounters hair dilemmas,even those with straight hair.We should not be held prisoners by what we have or don't have.So if I say it a million times in this space I will say it again. Every black woman's voice needs to be heard instead of her thoughts being perceived from the way she looks and is portrayed in the media.I'm talking both the mainstream and our own,for once lets just tell our own stories.That to me is the most powerful of all quest.
In more ways than one our lives reflect out through our hair not vice versa. When we are stressed it's texture can change,when we age it greys,the list goes on and on.Is it any wonder we find true liberation by deciding how we present our pride and glory or lack of it to the world.
