On black consciousness

Some thoughts since the last time I inked a piece of my soul:
This was sparked by a serious of events in my life, a recent study group I joined and bits and pieces of conversations with dear friends over the course of my life.

On black consciousness

I remember growing up this wild "so called" red bone, long thick haired, private school going girl in the "hood". I started in schools that made sure we as young black children knew that Ellis was more than a street name and that Dubois and Garvey were our legacy. “Our” national anthem was Lift Every Voice. With this pride I was set against a stage were the results of a slave mentality wrapped her hands around the youthful minds of inner city school kids, whom were never taught the truth of our laying the foundation to the red white and blue. So each time I spoke I had to defend my blackness because my words weren't prefaced with so called “how we talk”; words like ain’t and the infamous n word. My hue and hair suggested that I had been tainted. I dug in my heels and took the cloak of consciousness before I could spell it. My hero's were Malcolm SNCC, Angela and every slave that choose to be free and fight. If you were the won who dared cross my path and questioned my blackness be prepared to never cross that line again.
31 years, 3 kids, white university and very white corporate America, I reflect back on why I first loved the beauty of being ebony and me without cause for explanation or denigration of another. Or maybe it was leaving knowing I have to work twice as hard as my white counterparts. Or perhaps it was sitting in a room of African centered folks vomiting terms like; Yoruga, Anilis, Oshun, Maat and the destructive force of European dominance on ignorant socially climbing middle class black folks. Or maybe it was having to be centered out as the Only Christian in the room to which nods of shame and apologies for my faith. I drifted back to thinking what was it that made me become conscious and what did I hope to achieve. So once again I am back on the block defending who I am amongst my conscious African centered folks, and my folks that challenge my choice to acknowledge my strength is in my history.

Is there a point where self-love is embittered and too much?
Hell no, except when we are the only ones allowed to love the curves, the step in our walk and the blues to our songs. If I can walk the walk and talk the talk embrace your own stride. I refuse to tone mine down or put it on the back burner, as I would never ask anyone else to.
So I can be proud to be a woman of color it reminds me everyday that I have been blessed to come from a long line of history that has been welted into the backs of my forefathers and yet we never quit. We rose, we fought and we bled to see the infinite possibility that strives in me, so when I say I am proud to be me I mean every word I say. And I thank my ancestors that built the path that I travel and continue to carve as I go along the way by giving to others my story and strength. And I will never forget the call; I will triumphantly respond.

Is there a point when we attempt to identify God as a color to a detriment?
YES.
I sat alone defending Christianity as an authority. I am not. My views may seem radical but as real as they get. God said I would be known by many names, I have never known him to lie? So then why would I attempt to categorize him as a Euro centric tool used to manipulate weak black minds? Come on really is it that serious? Are we not able to see that a group of people Europeans; manipulated a gift larger than life to their own evil devices. And as we move forward can we not see that God, Jehovah, Allah, Buddha, Vishnu are all the same spoken in the language of the man/woman or else known as the receiver. The interpreter is the problem not the Creator; each faith articulates the same core medium, does that not spark a fire to say God never lies. It does in mine now what will you do? I cannot argue the principal of love it never changes and it is and has always been the greater lesson.
31 years deeper in the waters of life I can faithfully say that my bookshelf has not changed it has expanded. Angela takes her place next to my Bible who sits next to Amy Tan who playfully winks at the Iliad. I am proud of my thick hair that may be down, in head wrap straight or nappy. I love my full lips and golden skin. I am blessed to serve a God that has given me the wisdom to know that each man and woman has been created uniquely in the womb to serve a greater purpose, but ones purpose has different impacts just as the body has different limbs. There is none greater than the other. The head supports the neck, the arm and the shoulder and yet each one is named differently as they are only one of its kinds. We don't see the neck, head and leg as what they do in their respective functions first, we see them as What They Are; a neck, head and leg and we respectfully value them for what they do.
I am glad to be seen and would be prefer to be seen as that beautiful black woman who is appreciated for all that she offers and the colorful content of my character; but never forget what makes me beautiful is what makes me unique.