Ours & Ours: #BHM2022

 There is violence that exists at the root of black culture. Weaved into the very thread and DNA of all Black American beings. After all, our beginnings on this land were that of force, torture, and deprivation, and every other word you associate with a trauma that looms large and long enough to reverberate over centuries. So I don’t think our response to fight fire with fire was radical, I believe that going high served as the opposite and unnatural response. This is why I believe that we deserve to be a little possessive. What’s ours is ours and the little we have real estate on, other people want to leech off that too. And that is? You guess it. Violent. Racism in healthcare, policing, jobs, healthcare, and the list goes on and on like a rolling stone (word to Badu). Every subtle comment through email is violent. Every low offer of compensation is violent. Yet we keep trucking ahead and are still expected to just forget, move on, and go high. Time hasn’t healed a wound yet.

So this Black History Month, as any other, I fall into a bit of a catatonic state, reserving my energy and focus for reflecting on our people. Our state of being, active causes, injustices, stories, and fundraisers that need attention. And then seeing how white supremacy has evolved in the age of information/ social media age as it relates to those sectors of Blackness. As always, there’s never a shortage of information, never a plethora of good news and for every moment of progress, there’s two instances of violent force against our ideas, bodies, communities, and overall lives. And the cycle continues.

But one thing remains abundantly clear. When we do it? We do it. We rise above not just in response to what is happening to us and around us, but because we know more than one thing can hold our focus and multiple things can also be true at the same time. We are everything. And we CANNOT be stopped. A world that hates us cannot function without us. Whew, the POWER that the last statement has.

Our style, our influence, and our voices cannot be silenced. I am so proud that we are loud in using our voices in opposition to what is happening to and around us, but also to protect what is ours. We have been fighting the same fight since we were enslaved but what we battle has just changed its methodology, tactics, and a face. But we are also able to focus on what we have and what we created. That’s the beauty and the silver lining of a world as wicked as the day is long. Black women deserve. Black men deserve. Black LGBTQIA+ deserve. Every intersection of Blackness deserves. So although the gorgeous Muni Long may have been singing about a very specific dynamic, I chose to take it a step further. We fight the good fight for what is rightfully ours while preserving what already belongs to us….everything.

Happy Black History Month.

Cover Photo via nappy.co @Planetnehemiah

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