I just have to say. I have no problem telling you where Im from. Ill probably ask you if you mean in the States or before the States. Ill own both Baltimore and Bengal, claim Oakland as a piece of my heart & my Emerald City, and the border of Mexico and El Salvador as my Meccas, and Africa as Our Origin & the ultimate Destination. I am an Indigenous-centric, Afro-centric Bengali Amerikan woman. A long time ago, when I was very young and just moved to this country in a predominantly white classroom, I used to look down at my hands, palm up, palm down, and think: whyd I have to be born brown? Life would be so much easier to be the color of my palm. In pictures sometimes Id tuck my lower lip in cuz it stuck out too much. Once I remember being mad at my thighs and calves for being so thick and not feminine enough. Ironed the ethnic out my hair, my voice. I have come a long way from thinking the white way was the right way. In this journey, I learned the beauty of my melanin. And I vow to make other melanated children in this world KNOW their beauty. Through my choices, through my actions. Now being a flawed person, I know I have some kinks and eccentricities, and they make me the beautiful contradiction that is human. Though I can acknowledge or justify each one because I am an intelligent Brown woman, I do strive for some consistency with de yout. Because I love them. I will not be giving brown children white dolls to worship. No Disney Channel or Hannah Montanas. No history books worshipping colonists. No Rudyard Kipling. I will tell them about their cosmic origins, the power of their melanin, their undeniable intellect and power to resolve their own problems (but a surrounding village to back them up when they cannot), their ability to connect great truths and live honorably with dignity by the Golden Rule. How they come from the richest land in the world, and that is not a thing to boast but a powerful legacy and responsibility that was sought after. That they are infinite power and intelligence who can read through the ruse played on our People to reclaim our divine birthright and human responsibility to Life on this planet. And we will have fun. And create things, and sing, and dance, and laugh. And we will reflect on Life, and this planet, on the conscious being that is Nature, and our history, and on the diversity of cultural imagination. And learn to master our emotions, and speak mathematically and logically as well as poetically with the Universe. And we will become unstoppable. That is I Am Sun. And that is One Love. This is me. And white does not go first in my chess games.
Posted on: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 21:28:12 +0000
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