Delusions of Grandeur

Beyoncé’s Formation has triggered a tsunami of white tears. There has been an influx of white rage over the perceived messages that were presented in the artwork. I have seen a great deal of commentary & criticism making a few of the same baseless claims: Beyoncé is racist, divisive, anti-police, supports hate groups & that the Super Bowl was not the time or place to push her political agenda.

Clearly, through the eyes of many white people, any mention of the disproportionate police brutality against ‘minorities’, is to insult their service or to spew hate towards all police, not just the bad ones. That any mention of systematic racism & it’s lingering effects is, within itself, an act of racism. By this special kind of logic, to mention the poor outcome of any action, is to perpetuate that action yourself. Many are also claiming that to associate with the Black Panther Party, is to condone or support every single facet of it.

Obviously, too many of these people are unaware of the concept of constructive criticism. They seem to not understand that it’s possible to appreciate & respect something or someone, yet still not let the good they do give them a pass on the wrong they do. If you care about something or someone, don’t you want them to be the best they can be? The police have always had corruption & violence issues since its inception, so for these things to be eliminated, or reduced as much as possible, isn’t it necessary to address them? The first step to solving a problem, is to acknowledge that there is one, is it not?

Foolishly, many people are claiming that the Black Panther Party, at its creation, was an organization based in hate whose main objective was calling for senseless violent acts against white people based solely on their race. Despite the fact that the BPP virtually never engaged in any such activity & that most of any violence they promoted or acted out was strictly as a means of self-defense, white people still feel the need to bring it up as if it’s relevant & even go so far as to compare the group to the KKK, who actually did act out the hate & violence that they preached. They also conveniently never seem to be aware that the BPP did many great things for their communities that were struggling as a direct result of systematic racism, which was implemented by whites. White people are mad about the existence of the BPP & any support for or praise of the group, but consistently fail to mention that it only exists because of the actions of white people. They never want to acknowledge the fact that had America always treated all their citizens as if their lives mattered, the BPP, BET, Affirmative Action, Black Lives Matter, minority scholarship programs & every other government program or racially exclusive organization tailored specifically for PoC (people of color), exists because of white supremacy/privilege. Too often do white people whine about the symptoms of systematic racism, but don’t want to address the disease itself.

Arrogantly, perhaps due to centuries of policing black people & structuring their acceptable amounts & types of blackness, far too many white people continue to feel they have a right to tell black people when, where, how & which parts of the black experience they are allowed to discuss, celebrate or portray. They also too often believe that they somehow obtained the credentials to determine how long it should take black people to “get over” 500 years of living within a racist society. Too many believe that it’s their place to tell others what they should or should not care about. They are too often more concerned about getting black people to stop mentioning systematic racism (because it makes them feel bad [white tears] even though they can’t experience it) than they are about finding ways that they themselves can help end it.

Historically, whites have always glorified their terroris- excuse me, heroes – who in most instances, were violent criminals whose rise to fame & power involved the murder, robbery & exploitation of PoC. I live in the South & there are statues, monuments & streets all over the place named after Confederate soldiers & generals who participated in wars that fought, in part, to maintain their right to keep blacks enslaved. There are housing developments named after plantations. Many white people take pride in these killers & are thankful for the carnage they left behind, as it gave way to the white privilege they all benefit from today. Even those who came later, like the mob & folks like Bonnie & Clyde are hyped. Ted Bundy, Charles Manson & several other serial killers are found to be fascinating, their evil often attributed to mental illness or poor upbringing, but will attribute evils committed by ‘minorities’ to their nature. Many whites will look at a photo of a white person holding a gun & an American or Confederate flag (same difference) & will deem them a patriot, yet will see a photo of a black person holding a gun, waving an RBG flag & will deem them a thug. These are the same type of people crying ‘double-standard’ when it comes to Bey & her dancers wearing BPP garb.

Dear White People: It is not your place to tell any groups of people that have been oppressed & marginalized by your race, what ways are acceptable to celebrate their heritage & racial pride. Blacks do not need your approval for which parts of our history & current circumstances we choose to discuss. We are exposed to your racist history every single day, every time we see an American flag or dollar bills, but you want to cry about a couple of minutes of seeing a few black people dressed up like a group that practiced resilience against a system designed for them to fail? GET OVER YOURSELVES. You don’t get to tell us how to heal & grow from the effects of systematic racism. You have no right to tell us when or where it’s ok to express ourselves. You also don’t get to set the time frame for how long that will take, especially being that systematic racism doesn’t only exist in the past, it still remains today. When you bring up black-on-black crime, the broken black family unit, subpar education, ghettos, etc – don’t forget to mention how an overwhelming majority of those problems came about: systematic racism that was created & implemented by white people. Just because you didn’t have a hand in it doesn’t mean you do not have any responsibility to help clean up the messes & right the wrongs of those before you, because you still reap the benefits from the evils they carried out, while PoC are still trying to heal the wounds. It’s not Beyoncé, those who are singing her praises for her latest work, or the BPP you should be so deeply disgusted by, it should be the series of unfortunate events that led up to these things coming into fruition.

 

My Sister’s Keeper

No other woman is my competition! My hope is that we ALL make it!!

In the Chakra chart below, the right side shows the physical consequences of when women do not have their spiritual (left side of chart) lives in balance. Yoga, meditation, healing stones & a pH balanced diet will all work to counter those consequences, but it’s still equally important to try keeping our emotional states in check. We are what we eat & that includes emotions & thoughts…

Many of these factors are outside of ourselves, out of our control & at the helm of others, so it’s also equally important that we take care of each other, so as not to throw our fellow Kings & Queens off their spiritual balance, nor our little Princes & Princesses.

As you see, when our partnerships &/or relationships are nonexistent, weak, broken, or abusive, our self esteem is damaged; if we hate our jobs, have overwhelming responsibilities or financial troubles; feel unwanted or under-appreciated, those issues can trigger us to make poor lifestyle choices, including our diets, which leads to high blood pressure, various cancers (an epidemic in this country), weight gain/loss, drug & alcohol addictions, lowered fertility, uterine fibroid tumors, depression, back pain, breakouts & a weakened immune system, amongst other health problems.

When men abuse (eliminating our sense of safety), disrespect or degrade (altering our perception & morality), cheat on (damaging our self esteem & sense of security), ignore or withhold affection (ruining our sense of belonging & feelings of appreciation), it can literally kill us ladies over time. It works the same in reverse or when we do it to ourselves, or to other women.

Side-chicks have no place in the healing & uplifting of our Queens. I’d like to believe that the above meme is not true. I believe that most women who choose to assume a #2 position are very damaged themselves & that through personal growth & healing, they can change their destructive ways. A woman of substance that truly loves herself would never accept such a position, and if a man truly loved a woman, he would never allow or expect her to.

Some women are sociopaths & lack the empathy necessary to care about the damage they are participating in causing when getting involved with a man already in a relationship. Some are too hurt themselves to consider the feelings of others &/or afraid to get a man of their own, so being a mere side-chick will prevent them from getting hurt again. They may believe they are in a safe & even superior position by being the side-chick, because they may get a satisfying enough amount time, attention, affection & money/gifts – all without the responsibilities & stress the girlfriend/wife has at home.

In some instances, it may not be a self-esteem issue, but actually one of an inflated ego. They may just enjoy the excitement of having the attention of another woman’s man. A woman without any real substance will take so much pride in her looks & sex appeal that it blinds her to see that’s all she is worth to that man, not [yet] realizing her true value. My hope is that ALL women of such levels of mediocrity will discover or develop their self worth, leaving men without the option to betray their wives & girlfriends.

Of course, it is ultimately the responsibility of the persons within the relationship to keep up their side of the deal & to protect each other from hurt. I am not in any way relieving the cheating partner of their obligations by placing more of the blame on the sidepiece; I believe they are equally wrong in their actions & therefore equally responsible for the pain that they cause. I find both their actions deplorable, especially when there are children involved.

Us Queens have to support each other, uplift each other, take care of ourselves & stop hating on each other, stop fucking each others men (or women), competing with each other & fighting each other because no real positive changes or true unity will ever happen if we don’t! It begins with US!

The Miseducation of… Basically EVERYTHING

“…Showing off your ass ’cause you thinking it’s a trend… It’s silly when girls sell their souls because it’s in… Hair weaves like Europeans, fake nails done by Koreans… Come again”

Songstress Lauryn Hill’s Doo Wop – That Thing dropped 16 years ago & her lyrics are even more relevant & needed today than when it released. Instead of retreating away from the culture of obsession with image, society has dove in even deeper in the age of real-time media: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. Women & girls all over the World spend billions of dollars & thousands of hours every year on artificial enhancements & surgeries – sometimes risking & losing their lives – to look like something they are not, to attract the type of attention they don’t really need.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to look nice, but it’s whole other level when you can find endless photos & videos of young ladies & girls all over social media trying to garner the most looks & likes, as if their self-worth depended on it. Needing to validate themselves by how many people out there want to sex them, or wished they looked like them. Wanting to be admired for being a Barbie or a ‘bad bitch’, rather than a Queen or a phenomenal woman. Being more prideful & worrisome over the contour of their eyebrows, waist & size of their hips, than in the content of their character, health, or finding purpose in life.

If you are unfamiliar with who Sarah Baartman is, she was a South African slave who was featured nude in a traveling circus around London & Paris, catering to Europeans fascination with her physical African attributes, mainly her large butt, which some deemed an abnormality. She was led around stage like a wild animal, by her ‘keeper’ who’d have her walk, stand or sit when ordered. During this time, she was assumed to be the “missing link” by Napoleon’s surgeon-general, who upon her death in 1816, cast her body in wax & her remains were displayed in a Paris museum until 1974. In 1994, then president Nelson Mandela made an appeal to the French to retrieve her, but it wasn’t until 2002 that their senate approved a bill for her to be repatriationed back to South Africa, where she was finally laid to rest in the Eastern Cape.

Today, African women are exploited similarly in more modern circuses, known as talk & reality television shows. Celebrity obsession, pop culture, rap music, photoshop, womens & teen magazines, pageants, bullies & other factors have all contributed to this image & attention obsessed epidemic our current generation is facing. The difference between these practices amongst women of African descent & most other races is, many times when undergoing these beauty techniques, African women are also killing their sense of identity. Those are the girls L. Boogie was calling out, asking to ‘come again’. Millions of them are avoiding sun exposure & bleaching their skin, perming their hair & wearing weaves in any & every texture except for that of their real, natural hair. They are constantly celebrating & striving towards other races natural beauty, while failing to embrace their own.

Even Beyonce, as gorgeous as she is, has had a nose job & admitted to wishing that she was born Latina. I don’t believe it’s because she actually hates being African, but because she favors their natural beauty over her own. Sadly, there are hundreds of thousands of young black girls & women that feel the same way – boys & men as well. Many of us have been conditioned to & not just via mainstream media, but sometimes even by our very own friends & family. This destructive conditioning has been passed down through the generations ever since the days of slavery. My father used to live in New York City & had been to black nightclubs where they would do a ‘paper bag test’, not letting in any patrons whose skin tones were darker than a brown paper bag.

Our ancestors in Africa did not discriminate against each other in such ways. Looking at their artwork & hieroglyphics, they celebrated all their various shades of brown & hair textures equally! Like Lauryn, I want my fellow sisters to realize that their natural features are just as beautiful as the ones they are hiding them with & that there are much more meaningful things in life to worry about than how big your butt is, how well you can twerk & how many followers & likes you can get. There is more to you than meets the eye…

“How you gonna win when you ain’t right within? …………Come again”