The Only Assignment: Rewrite Tomorrow

For all our YAPPING about how we need to be better to Black women, we do a really piss poor job of ACTUALLY treating Black women with dignity just in their experience through any given day. Whether it's the statements we make about each other being too Black or not Black enough or the direct report who can't get comfortable taking instruction and feedback from Black women, or the supervisors who love bomb Black women only to cut them off at the knees when other people notice their greatness, or the organizations that paint us all over their websites for the same DEI clout they fail to demonstrate in practice...we are doing a crap job.

"It is easy to be brave from a safe distance."- Aesop

But you know what really grinds my gears? Our obsession with posting the footage of the Breonna's, the Priscilla's, the Atatiana's, the Nina's, the Pamela's, the Angel's...my God my God, the Sonya's. We say we want to shed light about what has happened BUT everybody already knows. You know, I know, we all know but we don’t really care do we? Because if we did, we would shed light when it mattered. If we did, we would stop wasting our time with folks who have demonstrated they don’t really care about us their entire political careers and recognize we have been played every single day of our live. If we did, we would stop making excuses for the folks who have repeatedly failed us and finally admit to ourselves that that was their plan the whole time and we got played. If we did, we would stop making excuses for Black people who have moved up the ranks of every area of society but are all tongue-tied and bound when it comes time to use the power and wealth they’ve acquired to finally DO SOMETHING. If we did, we would stop expecting the Obama’s and Kamala’s to be more than the latest puppets to herd us to our open gas chambers.?

"We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond."- Gwendolyn Brooks

Am I the only one who noticed that we had a series of tragic deaths just before elections in 2020 and its happening again? I wonder, if I look back in time, is this a pattern I will see in the American election season once Black folks really received a true ability to vote in the country their ancestors built on their backs? I won’t go down that rabbit hole. I just find it strange that every other group of people in American society are experiencing exponential growth in literally every area of their lives and Black people seem to only be excelling in pain, trauma and violence against them in every aspect of their waking life. THIS IS BUSINESS AS USUAL. When a Black woman dies a physical death, it is only final death after millions of deaths (and likely most peaceful death) she will die. We forget that we have been killing her from the moment she was conceived. We forget that we continued to kill her even when she took her first breath. We forget we killed her from preschool-12th grade.

"Never be limited by other people's limited imaginations."- Dr. Mae Jemison

And if she survived, we continued to kill her in college. And if she survived the first semester, we tried again and again and again. And if she actually graduated we killed her with debt. And then we killed her professionally by calling her DEI hire even though she looked better on paper by leaps and bounds and actually showed up and showed out because it's the only standard she was taught. And then we killed her financially by underpaying her. And then we killed her emotionally by undervaluing her. And then we killed her psychologically by gaslighting her when she dared speak up. And then we killed her trajectory by making her start over while her bully enjoyed job stability. And then we killed her voice by making her sign and NDA. And then we killed her dignity by forcing her to pretend everything was OK. And then we smiled and called ourselves her allies, when what really meant was we were going to use her neck to get over the obstacle because after all she is resilient and she will bounce back. Is she a ball?

"Defining myself, as opposed to being defined by others, is one of the most difficult challenges I face."- Carol Moseley-Braun

My heart no longer hurts for Black women. It is enraged by our blatant assent and acquiescence to mistreatment. It is enraged by the way we fail each other each day because we are all so afraid of losing the crumbs we have been given in exchange for our silence. It is enraged because by the way we serve each other at the table for the 9-course meal to which we have been invited. It is enraged by our silence and stagnation because we are more committed to exterior validation and praise than we are truly committed to Black empowerment. It is enraged by our mismanagement of ourselves. It is enraged by our affirmation of our looming destruction and our stale commitment to going along to get along…remind me, why are we trying to rub elbows and get along with evil again?

"Whatever we believe about ourselves and our ability comes true for us."- Susan L. Taylor

I wonder what if we spoke life over Black women. What if instead of being in agreement with the lies and constantly repeating them in our research papers, our books, our op-eds, our blogs, our podcasts, our news specials, our songs, our art, our prayers, our conversations with our coaches and our therapists…I wonder what would happen if we stormed the world with our greatness and completely ignored their opinions of us, their skewed data about us, their hatred for us, couldn’t we create a future with these words that elevated and accelerated us instead of maintaining our focus and mindsets on the past that only existed to destroy us?

"When I dare to be powerful to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid."- Audre Lorde

If manifestation is real, why aren’t we affirming those things we would like to see in the lives of Black women and all Black people really? If we are what we say, why do we look more like what they say because they keep flashing images, speaking words, and releasing vibrations that reinforce the lies they’ve told us about themselves? If we are what we say, why aren’t we claiming our right to define ourselves and living in the absolute truth that we have overcome and we are descendants of a royal priesthood? Why do we continue to juxtapose the truth about us to the lies they’ve spoken over our ancestors and every generation since then? The truth is the truth. A lie is only as good as it’s juxtaposition to truth, not the other way around.

This is our only assignment.