Complexities of Being Black

There is a heartbreaking tenderness about black folks. A majestic story that is spoken through stolen slaves + subjugated bodies. Our faces are centuries away from our soul; yet we carry the smile of humanness. An accessibility we would allow if we knew how to enter our own spirits. It’s evident that our feet carry the shackles of insecurities proven to shatter relationships when we come up against our own likeness. We struggle to love due to the threats that were made to keep us isolated. Oh, how I love being black. Did you think I wouldn’t after I divulged some of our frailties? Despite our struggles, we are larger than life, precious jewels that create art through our pain while we use laughter as a salve to heal so that we may survive yet another day.

Each day I observe the outrageous layers that cloak us + to translate the contradictions of our blackness would take several generations to unfold our grief. To be fairly conscious is to wrestle with that reality of how we have had to reinvent ourselves just to stay grounded.  To love another human being means to have to swallow the torture that made us hate ourselves. To learn to forgive quickly means to have to separate yourself from the performance that has suffocated you, the inescapable horror of relinquishing doctrine for self-love.

The truth is we never recovered from the battered hands, the castrating behavior nor the absent spouses or neglectful caregivers. We carry our degrees as a source of comfort in lieu of offering the parts of ourselves that still need to be cared for. Often we are like broken chandeliers, extravagant but always convincing others we are not worth restoring. My hope for us is unadulterated love, free from the burden of weighted insecurities. People who tell others that love is an act performed only for procreation does everyone a disservice. I am convinced that love is the thing that will connect us to each other, but most importantly to ourselves.