Hey ya'll!
Now you know I was not going to let this month go by without making at least one blog. I mean...we are given the shortest month out of the year for the world to acknowledge our blackness... and you know I'm black...BLACKITY BLACK and Proud. As Black History Month comes to an end, I took a moment to reflect on what being black means to me. There is no better way to explain it than to acknowledge the revolutionary movement of Black Pride and Black Power. Brief History lesson: In the 1960's our culture revolutionized the power of our culture by the the black power movement. In the 1960's Stokely Carmichael started a movement of protests while shouting, "We want Black Power! " to address the demand for racial and political equality of African Americans. This was after Richard Wright wrote a book titled, Black Power, that told the personal tale of his travels to Ghana. The Black Power movement of the 60's allowed black people to become bold and express their power while also fighting for equality and justice. Black Power was a statement and also contributed to our black pride. For the first time in history black people where also confident in their own skin; from our coily hair and prominent features, to our hope that one day the rest of the world would recognize us as the beautiful people we knew ourselves to be. The movement was so powerful that James Brown's, Say It Loud, became our anthem. Fast Forward: Now here are in 2023 - still black...still proud... but my question is when will there be another revolution for Blackness? I was thinking to myself, I love and celebrate my blackness every day...not just in February (the shortest month of the year), but what else can Black people give to the world to proudly express about our culture? Black Pride is everything, but it's nothing without Black Joy. How can we truly have Power without Joy? Webster's dictionary defines joy as, "a feeling of great pleasure and happiness." Black people are taught to be strong and hide our pain...never truly experiencing joy. In our community, we sweep things under the rug and act like things don't exist such as mental illness, childhood trauma, or sexual abuse. In our attempts to appear strong, we go without self care but drown in self sabotage. So I declare that on this day we indulge in Black Joy. What does that mean and how do we achieve it? We acknowledge the bull shit, by dealing with childhood trauma and mental illness Realize our own bull shit- stop with the imposter syndrome and self sabotage And say fuck that shit -learn how to delegate responsibility and stop trying to be super heroes. Last but not least, we learn how to be unapologetic about shit. So many times we as black people deal with unnecessary issues out of sparing the feelings of others, avoiding confrontation, or simply out of not wanting to feel like we fit into the "angry black man/woman " stereotype. Now is the time to speak up. It's time to be unapologetically aware and say, "Fuck Yo Couch" just like Dave Chapelle in the Rick James Skit. Black Power is Black Joy. “I embraced joy as my birthright. Radical black joy is inherent as a human need and not some special trinket you get after you rise high enough on the social-economic ladder or unlock some special level of desirability or accomplishment. –Tanya Denise Fields Signed, Krystale Jane'l
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