What happened at the Grammys comes as no surprise to me.
Lemonade is an album that celebrates black culture and women, so what did you expect? Did you really believe that they could give the most important award of the night to an album that empowers African American culture, that celebrates the woman, expecially the black woman?
Lemonade didn’t win but this as nothing to do with music.
The society is still refusing to recognize the talent and the genius when it doesn’t come from white people and for some strange reasons it just can’t give full credits to people who deserve them.
But at the end of the day, is that award really important? is it really that essential? I think not, and you know why?
Lemonade made people embrace their own culture, beauty and pain.
It showed depression, love, anger, apathy, joy all at the same time.
It gave a voice to those who couldn’t speak.
It gave courage to people to stand up for themselves.
It showed images in which people could reflect themselves and feel empowered.
So if they want to snub all of this greatness, there’s nothing we can do but keep on pushing, helping and supporting Beyoncé to fight the system and make the world a better place!
Half racing to cook eggs and the other to the bathroom
Somehow a lonely jar of Blue Magic and a broke rattail appear on the coffee table
We all will soon have our turns with it
My mama finally stopped bumping my ends
and I can have the half cornrows and crochet fro like Alicia Keys
Who is singing about her Teenage Love Affair with Antwone Fisher on my ol’ CD player
We show each other our dance routines and my mama laughs while my daddy rolls his eyes
He doesn’t understand!
We move just like Zendaya and Willow and Lil Mama and OMG Girlz and-
We finish getting ready for the day, it 11am and the bathroom counter and my dresser is a glossy mess of oil sheen, rubber bands, coco butter and vaseline
My big brother
who smell of Black & Milds and heavy gold rings
just bought me my first oversized graphic tee with a spray painted Betty Boop on it
I tuck that cool ass tee shit into my Jean short that hit just before my knee with red flowers stitched by me and auntie on the side
He drops off the gaggle of girls at the mall with a total of 30 dollars and says have fun,
he heads back to his apartment then Clint’s to get to work
We shoplifted big ass sunglasses from the Claire’s and bought a pack grape gloss and cotton candy body mist from the Beauty Supply store,
for a total of 6 dollars
We share
So we can look like RayRay or Roc girls
I’m a Princeton girl tho.
We just finish our slushies and corn dogs infront of the mall fountain when the rumble and sound of my brother comes down the street.
A Milli, bass boosted, blasting. We scramble in, backseat full
the skinny cousin on my lap,
the others giggling on the floor.
Back to my house, we gotta get ready. I hide the seam line between cornrows and false curls with a white bandana
I braid plastic neon colored extensions into my cousin box braids
One cousin hide the big gold hoops in her purse, next to a packet of tissues. We gonna put them on later
Because we are going to the skating ring
To scream our hearts out to How To Love as we speed on highlight colored wheels on the dingy roller floor
Holding hands between the six of us
And piss off the white kids
When the light turn back on and some country sound that I dont remember, but it sound patriotic plays.
It tells us to go home now, return your skates
We scramble into the back of daddy’s truck at 9 pm hopped up on
pop rocks and pickle juice and tacky light up pacifier necklaces
We are the girls they talking bout
Someone found a sharpie and now we are all tatted up
By 11pm we are scrubbed clean, heads wrapped in purple bonnets and black silk, sleepily drinking water, whispering over magazines and wishing we could wear pink wigs, sneak watching a censored Baby Boy on the tv.
Mama tells us cut that noise out.
It 2011
It’s the beginning of summer and
Lil Wayne just dropped How to Love
In the tangle pile of cousins on couch cushion, flat pillows and blankets
So I was feeding the homie The Signal my beef patties, and my guy started tearing up(They Spicccyyyyy) I gave him the look of ‘can you not handle the flavours?!’ And he shook his head.
Signal : Nah, I’ve been living with some white folks for a bit and some of them can’t handle spicy food. The…. Grandpa who makes the food certainly knows his spices tho. He just has to cater to the others so most of the food is mild.
Me : Damn! We need to help you!
Signal : wha-
Me : FEED OUR BOY THE SIGNAL PROPER FLAVOUR
So, let’s have a campaign called ‘#FlavourForSignal2020’ and ‘#FlavourForSignal2021’ (since New Years is coming up.)
This transition touched me differently. Secretly fighting his own personal battle for years while delivering his amazing talents on screen and becoming a beautiful, symbolic black man in power fighting for justice while discovering himself, expanding his culture, and finding his purpose, he became a leader right before our eyes.
Goodness! So much of me wants to believe that he still just fell off the cliff and floated away, but he’s recovering and will return and surprise us all.
Black Girl Magic isn’t just for black women with college degrees, big houses, fancy cars, and/or own businesses. Black Girl Magic implies to all black women and girls. Black women and girls who grew up poor have magic. The ones with high school diplomas have magic. The ones who dropped out of school for whatever reason have magic. Magic shouldn’t be exclusively preserved for the rich and famous. Struggling black women and girls deserve recognition, respect, and love too.
Economist Lisa Cook Confirmed to Federal Reserve Board, 1st Black Woman Governor in Agency’s 108-Year History
Economist Lisa Cook Confirmed to Federal Reserve Board, 1st Black Woman Governor in Agency’s 108-Year History
According to washingtonpost.com, economist Lisa Cook was confirmed today to serve on the Federal Reserve Board. She is the first Black woman to help oversee the nation’s central bank as it works to stabilize financial recovery in the United States. To quote from washingtonpost.com:
Cook was confirmed by a 51-to-50 vote in the Senate, with Vice President Harris casting the tiebreaking vote. No…
A scholar, activist, and philosopher, Angela Davis (born 1944) is a powerful and influential, but also often criticized public figure. She has had a place in many notable groups of people, including the National Women’s Hall of Fame, the Time’slist of the 100 most influential people in the world, and the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitive List.
Davis was born in Birmingham, Alabama, in a neighborhood that had been bombed in an attempt to drive-out the Black people who lived there. She attended a segregated school until she was able to transfer to an integrated high school in New York City. From a young age, she was educated and influenced by communists. Academically, she was particularly interested in the works of the Existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre.
It is beyond the scope to detail everything she has done–Davis is an incredibly accomplished woman–so as a brief rundown of a few of her more notable actions, she
Participated in the radical Socialist German Student Union in East Germany
Joined the Black Panther Party
Joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
Joined the Che-Lumumba Club
Earned a PhD
Began teaching, was fired for being a Communist, was rehired, was refired
Was declared a terrorist and on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitive List (only the third woman to be so listed)
Was declared not guilty by an all-White jury (after an international backlash)
Resumed teaching, but secretly, despite being officially hired? Her students were sworn to secrecy but it was an actual class.
Davis is a lesbian; she lives with her partner, fellow professor, Gina Dent.
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