Black Card

     I took my daughter to try a hip hop dance class. She thought it was hard and she believed herself to be inadequate. I thought to myself,  "inadequate for what? To whom? For a black girl?" We joke about the black card and when and why it should be revoked. I had to pause and explain to her what it means to be black, and just how ALL encompassing we are!
     No one has the right to contain all and everything that you are and place it in a "Black Box". As an American we've been exposed to so much, and as we continue to travel the world, explore & discover, we will continue to expand who we are.            That brings me great joy! I love being black & I am proud, but I know we sometimes have a tendency to judge one another for stepping out of our culture lane. I think we've been shut out far too long to limit ourselves. Don't you? We have many talents, interests, and our strengths vary. Rhythm is something that some of us has to work on, and that's fine. It doesn't mean we are any less black. There are many of us who have been so ostracized by our own that they've abandoned being black altogether. You know those sisters and brothers who feel like they can't identify with our cause? We label them 'Uncle Toms' and confiscate their black cards.  What is it that made them turn their backs? If we are to move into the future in strength and in numbers we have to remember who we are. The spirit within knows NO boundaries and can never be placed in a black box.

Humanity First

I've been thinking about the new talk about life outside of Earth.
At one time, I believed it to be exciting.  The thought of life other than ours...
Then I thought about all the unjust killings of black people. The disproportionate number of black and brown men incarcerated and I knew that as much as I LOVE to fantasize about the world beyond, we have too much work to do at home.

Black Lives Matter - Nothing New?

Why I love GOOGLE - the Google Doodle! It gives us a daily reminder of the significant people, places and events that general American History either forgets or would like to purposely bury. Today marks the 100th anniversary of the Silent March parade of African Americans SilentParade1917. African Americans protested against the brutal slaying of 40 - 250 African Americans during race riots in East St. Louis.  This happened after Southern blacks began to migrate up north. Apparently authorities were accused of turning a blind eye or even participating and antagonizing these events.

Why wasn't this in our history books when studying the Civil Rights Era?  This event occurred in 1917 - decades before the major civil rights movement. When we discuss the relevance of the Black Lives Matter movement today, it's important to know about this event and those similar.  Some people still believe that the BLM movement is racial.  If those who are against the BLM movement can see how over the centuries, the murder of African American people in racial hatred was ignored and overlooked,  They would understand that this is simply about the disproportionate numbers in which African Americans are innocently killed in these incidents and not brought to justice. This movement is about recognizing that being silent over these egregious acts of violence among innocent people has to be brought to light, recognized by every American, and those responsible need to be held accountable and brought to justice by their actions.

It's about Human Dignity.  

Those who offend, should not continue to get passes because of their profession and because they do, it sends a message to the masses that our lives do not matter.  It brings to mind the scene from the 1996 film, A Time to Kill where Matthew McConaughey's character asks the jury to visualize the heinous acts of the 3 white men on trial - the brutal rape of the little black girl in the movie.  He asks them to close their eyes and visualize her bleeding, broken body being left for dead by these men. Can they see her? Tears came to the eyes of many of the white jurors as they pictured the little girl. The lawyer pressed to convince them of the innocence of her father when he was possessed to gun down the men responsible after they were set free. Could they see the little girl? After vividly painting the scene - he simply asks "now imagine if she was white."

Now I have to ask those same Americans who oppose the Black Lives Matter movement and what it stands for, would they question it? Would it matter more if the mass amount of innocent people unjustly killed were white?