It’s Black History Month. After all that HAS happened and is STILL happening to my people, I still LOVE BEING BLACK.
Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash
Growing up, we’ve all experienced the cliche black history month vague worksheets and repetitive videos that were shown to us in school. The African Americans that we were learning about were EXTREMELY important. But I just feel like things are just sugarcoated and watered down. I always want to hear and read about the real struggle; no matter how much it hurts. I don't want some Hollywood version of slavery and the Civil Rights movement.
Photo by History in HD on Unsplash
So what does Black History Month mean to me? It's a mixture of the struggle, the pain, and the perseverance of my ancestors. Is it all negative? Mostly yes. But in the middle of the trauma, we somehow find our Black joy. We can still smile. We can still laugh and crack jokes. We still develop unwritten black people rules that only black people understand. We can still find our peace in art and music. We achieve milestones through black business owners.
Black History Month is a chance of celebration but I feel like we can't 100% celebrate because remembering our past is basically reflecting on our trauma.
It's like bittersweet but we have to know and learn about it to see how far we've come.
I started researching my real Black History once I became an Auntie of 3 adorable black boys. My responsibility is to make sure that they always experience JOY and know where they come from. I pray everyday for their wisdom and knowledge of just how special and important they are to the world. My little babies.
Black History Month is also my happiness. We are still in the struggle but I absolutely love being BLACK. I love how my people are different shades of color and can try different and unique hairstyles. I love how we crack jokes and roast each other for absolutely no reason at all. I LOVE how we can turn a simple song into a whole remix and make it go viral. I love our whole damn SWAG. I love our moves and "ayyyyyyyyyy" dance circles. Even though Tik Tok don't give us credit, we know who made all that viral ish up.
I don't just read James Baldwin literature and poetry from the Queen Maya Angelou during Black History Month. I'm reading about my people every month. There is way too much talent, literature, music, art, dance, and film by my people that can't be contained, researched, and learned in the shortest month of the year.
With that I still make a huge deal over Black History Month.
Just know my history is above and beyond 28 days.
Love, Rach
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