Checking Hate at the Gate

Wassup y’all? Feeling way blessed to have another opportunity to share my heart with you. Thank you for stopping by!

This has been quite a week. A brother who calls himself Yashua emailed me to declare his divine authority and sovereignty over African America. My cyber-granddaughter’s African Dance class was invaded by White folk of dubious intent. Sisters still debating whether dark skinned women suffer more than light skinned women and another 19-year-old man-child bleeds to death on the street with a police bullet in his back.

Who have we become and what the heck are we doing? Once upon a time, we saw beauty, excellence and pride reflected in our mirrors and each other’s eyes. Once upon a time, we fried chicken, baked cornbread and threw some serious parties to ensure each other’s rent was paid; we protected and disciplined each other’s kids and made sure mom got to the store no matter whose mother she was. Once upon a time, we were powerful in our love and unity.

What does that have to do with anything? Well let’s revisit dance class. Somebody commented that White folk used to stay as far away from African cultural happenings as possible; now there seems to be a rush on to usurp. Accurate? Could our post-integration perspective be why? What do I mean? Somewhere in the late seventies, there was a shift in the nature and focus of the battle. The civil rights movement was not a battle against systemic injustice and imbalances of power and capital; it was a fight for equity parity and justice. Now, on the surface, those may sound and in many ways even manifest as much the same fight, but they are in fact diametrically opposed.

To fight against something, one must fear it, must consider it the possessor of greatest power and deem it a life threat. In short, to fight against, requires taking the disdainful position of underdog and accepting this position of less than breeds epidemic self-loathing.

To fight for something, one must love it, must esteem it more highly than any perceived threat and willingly protect its right to grow and thrive with one’s very being. To fight for, secures the mountain top position. From the mountain top would-be attackers a clearly seen and their plans easily thwarted; it is from this position and this position alone that we can rebuild mutual respect, unity and our communities. It is from this position, that we can eliminate self-loathing and restore self-love.

So y’all, would we still be spawning “Yeshuas” opportunistically trying to wrap the shackles of organized religion in kente cloth and market it as our cultural heritage if we were fighting for? Would our most spiritual gathering be at threat of invasion if we were fighting for? Would we hold each other close to sooth the wounds of beatings and rapes if we were fighting for? Would our babies be daily murdered on street corners if we remembered/restored our position of power and unity ~ if we were fighting for?

Peace and blessing to y’all. Take a mountain top position today!