T(-1 week)

7 days till i'm on a plane headed stateside -- away from this city and the foggy allure of the unfamiliar. 7 days to pack away all the peace I've found in these iced alley's, the reflections that sketched themselves into street art. 7 days to perfume my skin in the stench of a deluded fantasy that cracked open to reveal a truth more beautiful than I could ever leave behind. 7 days to make my spine a monument of the lessons I learned when my back could bend no further. 7 days to create. 7 days to remember. 

I am looking forward to the love that will greet me when I land. I am sick with visions of myself curled in my mothers bosom all 20 years of childlike adoration pouring out of my eyes. The warmth I will feel when returning to the first place I called home. I get to love on all my friends. I get to breathe, relax, and create without fear of looming deadlines or exchange rates.

My biggest fear is leaving behind a piece of myself or rather The Peace of My Self that I stumbled into on one of these lonely night in Dinwiddy. I have grown so much. Released so much. Become so much and I am absolutely terrified of reverting back to the me I was before leaving America. But that's silly and belittling of me to think. I cannot let Queen Elizabeth's territory take all the credit. 

I have led myself through every breakthrough and breakdown. Me and God and the God that is me are responsible for this feeling of maturity and divinity. I can never abandon myself or leave myself behind because that is not how the self works.

Through these sandpaper lectures rubbing my conscious raw only to be salted with white European liberalism and guilt, through the bouts of pettiness, and broken bank accounts I have shed a great deal of attachment to things that would have normally pulled me into fragments and left me at mercy of some kind broom to be swept up. 

I have lived! I have partied with legends and befriended creative saints who I know will go on to change the world. Once in a while i'll pop up on their timelines and they'll remember that little burst of Southern breeze that came through sweet as a peach and swearing like her parents used to pacify her with whisky.

Will never again be the thing that keeps me quiet. I will never again be content with less than I deserve. I have seen folks not that much older than me cultivating their own promised lands and I cannot rest until mine has turned to Eden. 

7 days to make sure it all sticks. 7 days till forever.

Shay & I at Numbi AFRO-DISCO

You feel it in ya waist: A Weekend of Afro-Beat (Nov 15-17)

I was blessed by my UK WonderTwin, the phenomenal Caro, with the opportunity to attend two dope Afro-Beat concerts. If you're not hip to all the current diasporic musical happenings, Afro-Beat has grown a long way from the Yoruba influenced funk and Jazz of Fela Kuti.

In 2013, Afro-Beat is a genre of a new wave of pop/rap/African fusion. It is the music that supports global dance trends like Azonto and gives voice to a new African identity that has grown up within a broader cultural soundscape. Afro-Beat pulls from both tradition and modern conventions to forge a sound that hits you right in the lower back. Each tune encourages the kind of soul stirring movement that can only be attributed to blood of those who danced revolution and survival throughout the western coast of the mother continent.

I got my first taste of Afro-Beat while volunteering in Ghana the summer of 2012. I remember my first night at "Fish & Friends" a pub in Accra, eating Indomie and watching Serge and the boys dance. That summer my favorites were "Over Again" by Edem & "Chop My Money Remix" P.Square ft. Akon. Before leaving I was gifted a USB full of Afro-Beat hotness. Everything from WizKid to R2Bees to FuseODG. On campus, my Ghanaian brethren Vincent would indulge in random bouts of Azonto with me. We even recorded a video in the snow in an attempt to go viral.

I love an energized crowd. I love watching people give themselves to music, let it take them somewhere as real and as imagined as nostalgia. Afro-Beat does that, even in a relatively sedate London crowd. The GTBank sponsored Wande Coal concert started slow. The crowd was smaller (& younger) than expected but the music was good and I was in lovely company. While Caro had run to check on a friend, one of the girls standing next to us asked me a question about drinks at the venue. I answered her and watched her face light up (my words in red/thoughts in italics):

 "I love our accent" "Where are you from?" I reply, "The states" "Where about?" "Atlanta" "Are you Ghetto?!?!?" "Usually people who sound like you are ghetto," she says with a look of excited admiration. I am stunned. What does she mean? Is she asking If am poor? I say "I don't know...maybe" "Oh, well I had a friend who sounds like you, and she, she was like ghetto" "oh." She goes on to ask where am I from again, this time targeting my country of origin. I say "well...Ghana in theory" She's a bit confused but doesn't ask anymore questions. Her friend says she thought I was Nigerian "Could be" I smile and nod back into my bubble and wait for Caro to return.

The crowd grew as we got closer to the headliner, and by that point it didn't matter. I was attempting to mimic the moves of the two all female dance crews that had graced the stage. Training my body to the new movements, this was not your typical twerkfest. It was a less sex-centric high powered movement of hips, legs, feet and hands. It was the creative genius of a body in rapid harmony with the music. All the varied dances and their respective "theme songs" reminded me a bit of the Snap Music craze of the mid-00s.

Wande Coal is more classic than contemporary. His carrier kicked of in 2008 under the tutelage of industry Heavyweights Don Jazzy & D'banj. Regardless he is still a respected and enjoyed presence throughout the Afro-Beat soundscape. During his set he brought out current international Afro-Beat superstar FuseODG. WonderTwin and Fuse have a special relationship and his performance was a complete surprise. His performance was great, but I was more enthralled by the show of love and excitement Caro put on in the audience.

From L-R: DJ Mika, Gabrielle (Music Mangment), Caro/WonderTwin, Me

Two days later Caro was to event manage an Afro-Beat Showcase in Camden Town. My time in the audience was split between watching her run things and watching the performers. Same waist shaking energy this time in a more intimate setting. Caro graces every project she touches with excellence and professionalism. She has such a good spirit and it is well appreciated by her friends, artist, and clients. I am blessed to have connected with her. The concert ran smoother than smooth. The artist, some of them echoing performances they had given at the Wande Coal show, were energetic and the crowd responded beautifully.

That weekend foreshadowed the fieldwork I will be doing next term in Ghana. I am so inspired and entertained by this new cultural movement and I can't wait to merge my lived experience with it with all my anthropological insights. As Fuse say's "This.Is.New.Africa" and I am a grateful to bare witness.

Late Post RE: The Royal African Society's Film Africa Nov 1- Nov 10

Nov 1st marked the start of The Royal African Society's (RAS) 10-day film festival. My internship, Numbi Arts, has been a long time collaborator with RAS and was asked to run a free workshop during Film Africa Family Say on Saturday November 2nd. I had been anticipating the film festival since my first meeting with the Numbi family. The elaborate foldout pamphlets, composed of showtimes and stills from films, wall paper my campus. Films came from each edge of the continent, exploring the life, the love, the joy, and the anguish of African peoples from all angels. I had planned a trip to Rome,Italy for the end of the week so my participation in the festival was limited to the first 3 days. I was most excited about seeing Andrew Dosunmu's Mother of George, but I hesitated to book my tickets and they sold out. Instead I booked a ticket to a showing of 5 short films including Akosua Adoma Owusu's Kwaku Ananse. 

Saturday, I arrived at the venue to support Numbi with the set-up and running of a 1950s style African Photo Studio. We set the background positioned our props and waited for traffic to pick up. One of my classmates, a loving warm spirited woman of Congolese decent, was volunteering with the Royal African Society. She came over and we chatted while the photographer snapped a few test shots.

Between sips of mint tea and conversation on the artistic development of black youth, I circled the room in search of props and encouraging folks to capitalize on the free photos Numbi was offering. A group called "Open The Gate" had organized an African market. To my left was a woman selling hand crafted Ankara print children's clothing, to my right were hand made dolls that reminded me of the playmates my mother created for me while I was a toddler. Black baby-dolls with natural hair will forever be an item of cultural importance. If "playing house" is when we first come into awareness with our capacities for love and our maternal energies, being able to see, carry, and love a child that looks like you as you were fashioned by the Creator, surely lays the foundation for any conception of self-love.

Of the people who came through our photo-booth were children, bloggers, families, designers, and other enterprising creatives. I enjoyed watching them interact with the camera. 

The next day I took a bus to Hackney Picturehouse to participate in the less active side of the festival. I have never been decidedly "into" short films. Kwaku Anase has received a lot of black/african tumblr hype and I was excited about the reworking of one of the many Ananse The Spider stories that narrated my childhood. All the films were cogent and entertaining though some left me hanging on unfulfilled plot lines.

Kwaku Ananse, directed by one beautiful Ghanaian creative, starring another (JoJo Abot), re-birthed in me an impassioned longing to return to Ghana. It is a strange sort of homesickness that is not at all unfamiliar, having 'theorectical roots' in a place you are generations of violence and exploitation removed from gives way to a series of odd sentiments that I have been blessed with the opportunity to make sense of. 

I left the theater ready for the next chapter in this journey. My time in London is coming to an end (I will be boarding a plane literally some 30 days from tomorrow) and after a brief respite in the States I will be off again. There is so much stirring, in me/around me, that I know this time will be different...perhaps even more meaningful.I still have a lot to do to ensure I make the most of it.

*logs off blog to work on grant proposal*

Not Bad For A Muliagna: Roma, Italia 2013

from Mexican admirers, to stolen legacies- I came, I saw, I conquered.

The Yellow Youth Hostel: Conveniently located near Termini Metro station, this was home throughout my stay. There was bar and mini club for residents only. First time clubbing solo made memorable by a twerking Italian girl and a moderately creepy Mexican admirer.

 Ruins in the Roman Sun: It was so hot. I welcomed the sun and the sweat. I miss it dearly and I have been in london for less than 24 hours :/

 Posse Brethren D'andre Starring in "All Hail Ceaser's Home, Nigga": This boy has been such an important part of this term abroad. Just a little bit of home running around Europe with me. Didn't realize this until he walked me to the bus stop and the separation anxiety I thought I had grown out of reduced me to a bag of tears waiting to board my shuttle.

 Roma, Italia: Shot from the ruins. Just a sample of the beauty and history that surrounded us.

 Colosseum : like a postcard, innit?

 Trevi Fountain: So awe-inspiring. Really touristy and really romantic. I made a wish. Felt like a kid again. A really blessed kid with a family that never ceases to support my dreams. Much love to my mother for making this trip possible for me and to my Daddy for reminding me the value of experience over material "comforts."

 Pantheon: Sooooo Big


Brandeis in The Vatican Museum: Such a blessing to reunite with these lovely ladies. They are studying in Perugia and LIVING LIFE according to all the stories I heard. 

 AnkhsOnAnkhsonAnkhs

 "When Die Bury Me Some Sarcophagi" 

 Random Ceiling in the Vatican Museum

Barkley Hendrick's Family Jules (NNN: No Naked Niggahs)

negligence: October Re-cap Part 1

An entire month has past with nary a post. I could say that life has been happening to fast for me to report it, but I'd only be being half truthful and there's no sense in that. Life has been happening (fact). The month of October passed quickly (also, fact). But not too quickly for me to tweet, and tumbl, and roll around in bed and watch an ungodly amount of Breaking Bad. I'll be better this month. I don't have many left in London and as I wrote to myself in my journal a couple weeks ago "How will I recount this time in my life without written record? What will I make of it in my memoirs - a string of drunken memories and half dreamt realities??"

I am going to try and make these snapshots into the past month as cogent and captivating as my memory allows. Here goes it:

Classes at SOAS:  I get my schedule sorted on the second. Ethnomusicology is a necessary brain drain. My classmates are all musicians, mostly white, who have fallen in infatuation with "world music." I've dropped Ethnography of West Africa for the sake of Prespectives on African Experience and picked up an anthropology course on New Religious Movements. This is my second time taking an Anthro course focused on religion for some reason this course work always seems to find me at times of spiritual need. I have problems with folks in my class who take this cold scientific approach to the study of culture. To try an belittle all the color of someones life into a little box to better dissect seems intellectually cruel. I completely disregarded my requirements (which ended up as predicted) to take Perspectives on African Experience because of an experience that can only be referred to a "love at first lecture." Dr. Kwadwo Osei-Nyame speaks with fire in his eyes and carries that same familiar omniscient nature present in all my favorite teachers in the history of ever. He rambles through the text - mixing the words of Garvey & Dubois & Achebe with that of Bob Marley and other lesser known reggae purveyors. He sings, and curses Babylon. He is so spirited and black and lovely that the alienation and discomfort I feel in my other lectures melt away. I am taking a history course on slavery with a re-occurring theme of "well it was really all in the hands of the Africans." My professor is a white French woman who studies internal slavery in Mali, my TA is a Black woman with shoulder length locs and a smile that apologizes after each lecture.

Adventure #1 The Tate Modern: I tag along with a group of IFSA students to South Bank for some art. One girl and I get separated from the group because of low funds on our bus passes. We have to top-up then catch a later bus. She's a planner, we've strayed from the plan. I adopt the mantra "trust the city" walking with purpose from directional sign to directional sign. I have no idea where I'm going but have lost the will to freak out about it. She's nervous. We get there. It's windy near the water but there's a big wooden structure calling for us to explore it. We wander about this freestanding staircase contraption take some pictures and make our way inside. In an exhibit titled "Poetry & Dreams." I walked through the galleries completely giving myself to the images and text on the walls. In a room with a focus on contemporary realism as a means to discuss unconventional realities, I was visually confronted by a naked black body. A male, one knee bent the other extended to the end of the frame leaning on the arm of an exquisite white couch. He holds a pipe with his headed tilted skyward against a geo-floral pattern. Shoulders hunched, shaft exposed, eyes averted, everything about this figure said "I am here to exist, not for you to see, I am here to exist as I am". The piece was entitled "Family Jules: NNN (No Naked Niggahs)" After reading the title I exhaled a giggle of gratitude, of praise for the celebrated freedom and comfort of this black man (painter & muse). The description accompanying the piece was about confronting white fears and stereotypes of black male sexuality. Simply put, this nigga gave me life. And It wasn't just that it was a bold artistic effort, or that I was shocked to see it in the same space as numerous Picasso's & Polluck's. I looked at this "naked niggah," arrogantly comfortable on these white walls, under this immense white gaze, and saw myself (5 feet of black/woman with a tower of hair and a southern/American accent) walking through London smiling at strangers.

Visit #1: Aliya arrives from Spain on Wednesday. I pick her up. We drop her bags and head to an area of East London called Shoreditch for a meeting with my Internship Family. I am late, and again have no idea where i'm going. Mantra still steady "Trust the city" as I walk in search of a sign or map that may point me in the right direction. I find one, I follow it. We arrive. At RichMix, a cinema/performance space, I meet the Numbi Arts Team for teas and a chat in the cafe. I am given a run down of what my duties are and we talk about everything from art to Baldwin to Rihanna's new "Pour it up" visuals. After the meeting we walk down Brick Lane to get food at this wonderful Indian place tucked off past the street art and vintage shops. More conversation over naan bread. My belly is full. The walk back is cold but I'm so entranced by the energy of the area that I can't speed through it. We get home via the Overground and I'm already planning my return. That night is chill. The next is not. We get go out to "Southern Hospitality's" Hip-Hop Karaoke in central London. It's poppin. Friday there's a not  so poppin' party at the bar across from my dorm. We go. I'm drunk. I dance. I don't care that the room is almost bare or that i'm the object of full on white male gaze. By the time we leave I've decided I'm crushing on the DJ. The next night is chill, partially because of my inability to dress myself. We make a run to the store, eat ice-cream, and watch British TV shows. Sunday morning we get up and head back to Shoreditch. The plan was to grab lunch then get Aliya back for her flight, but the truth about girls in markets is that they tend to lose grip of time. Aliya leaves me at Paddington tube stop around 3 and ultimately misses her flight. I wait up for her searching plane tickets. She returns, It's all sorted. She wakes me in the morning to let her out of the building. She's gone before I pick the crud from my eyes. Such a lovely visit. Almost felt like a dream.

To Be Continueeeeeed

Reality it is, Paradise it isn't

Reality is....

"walking the back way to campus -at the back of the queue discussing recent happenings in Nairobi with a colleague from Kenya and a flatmate from Cali.

Black car rolls by. a voice breaks. it is loud. it shatters the solace I thought i found here. It was almost too loud to discern but my spirit has been around long enough to know when its name is called: “NIGGER”. the voice was colorless. An “oh shit” left my body. I looked past the gap-the space between us and the 7 unassuming white Americans that hadn’t let themselves hear anything. 

I grabbed my phone hoping words could reconcile, could recoil my comfort. 

Walking in the present-feeling like the future- the past fell

black and heavy- an anvil. I’m the only one left looney.

It is possible to feel this disoriented even when stars (& stripes) aren’t spinning."

Reality is...

"sitting tipsy - Ghana on your left, Sudan on your right - body a crushed border of understanding. Pain accented in the Queen's English. These girl's know pain better than they know themselves. They will tell you stories. You will feel them in your past. As Ghana quotes Maya Angelou, you will notice that here the cage is just prettier, that black birds always carry the sweetest sorrow, that warm lips and loud laughter always seem to fit better into someone else's joke. You will cry to make room for acceptance. That this university, and all the others like it, are battlegrounds. We learn from the trenches, we must plot our survival, we must be there for each other. Diaspora is more than a people once spread. Unity is more than a nice idea -it is a necessary tactic. "

In Summation...

Paradise ain't nothin' but the reality you make the most out of. This week I was forced to dead my "post-racism" fantasies about London/SOAS and my experience will be richer for it.  I was outside a party, as white girls danced in appropriative orgies of Bhindi's & Afro-Beat,  literally in tears as I listened to two African British first years talk about the racism they've had to deal with in their flat. We moved in less than 2 weeks ago and it's the playful kind of racism that likes to hide itself in liberal arts institutions or in this case "racial banter" completely disassociated from the painful history of colored people existing in the society of their colonizers.  I was also called "Nigger" by a colorless voice in a speeding car on the walk to school a couple days ago. 

It's crazy how present the past can be.

I'm still processing everything.

A Week of Welcomes

My dorm in Dinwiddy House is strikingly reminiscent of last years single in Deroy. After getting our keys, the IFSA gang headed to Argos, an elaborate catalog store that feels like the future. You look through books, check availability, hand the cashier a little slip and wait to be brought everything you've asked for. It was such a lovely minimalist shopping experience. Well worth the troop it took to get their and the pounds spent on the cab ride back.  I prioritized decorating: hung a Ghanaian tapestry & overpriced records from a charity shop up the road in Islington. I have still yet to fully unpack. Clothes are overwhelming and there's not enough drawer space so my suitcase is serving as a clothing reservoir for the time being.

Those first two days were easy enough. Went grocery shopping. Felt grown and responsible. Having a fully functioning kitchen is a new kind of freedom. A freedom my tongue and tummy are grateful for. Imagining meals and creating them, honoring my cravings and saving money-the good life.

"Fresher Welcome Week":  populated halls, free planners, and a full table of events. The first event was listed as a BBQ which ended up being a massive serpent of a queue  wrapped throughout the grounds of the Vernon Square campus/ Paul Robeson post-graduate housing complex. There was one food truck, serviced by 3 people. Frying chicken and grilling up some mushroom/eggplant radish stuff for the vegetarians. I wasn't hungry for anything aside from social interaction but it was difficult to break through such a food-centric arrangement. It was an ideal time for people watching and after standing around for an hour or 2, dancing to 90s dancehall and making conversation with the folks around me i was hungry and hell bent on getting some chicken (breaking my diet because im allergic to eggplant and detest mushrooms). But Chicken ran out, campus closed and I found myself pleading for some eggplant mush before being forced out of the courtyard towards a pub called Bistro.

That night at Bistro was my first successful turn up. SOAS DJs did me right serving up Hip-Hop, Nostalgia and "proper Bashment tunes." I exchanged smiles and dance moves for Facebook adds and plans to be made Jollof by an adorable Ghanaian fresher. Being the only one who can twerk in a pub feels like a super power.

I spent my post-party hours chatting with two recent SOAS graduates about music degrees, campus, and club nights.  

Orientation/Enrollment: The 8:30am hike to Russell Sqaure on a Monday morning was a situation I refused to let myself stress over. I got up. Got out. And Got there- tuning out the anxious power walk of my fellow study abroad students. Once there, we sat in an auditorium for almost 2 hours learning about the days to come and the distinctions of the UK university system. Since I am only here for a term, I will be assessed based on either 1x 4,000 word essay due in January or 2 shorter essays, one mid-term the other in January. 

The next day, I arrived at campus around 2:30 for "formal enrollment" queued up for about an hour, handed over my identification documents & received my library card.

As far as classes are concerned, I have spent the week emailing professors for enrollment approval. Thought I had it all sorted until I discovered some blaring time clashes and overlaps in my personal timetable. Currently sorting it all out. Decided to stop worrying about Brandeis' Anthropology requirements and focus on making the most of this semester. If all goes well I will have Thurs & Friday free for travel and be taking courses on everything from Ethnomusicology to African literature.

Sally Rides....again

"It's the way you believe

That becomes the very thing you see

Take a ride in the sky

It's just calling"

-Janelle Monae, Sally Ride

My last day at work: sipping lemon ginger tea out my "Black is Beautiful" mug, it is Friday the 13th, the last day of my summer internship. The only thing scary is the remaining 3 days I have to turn the semi-sorted stack of clothes in my room into one suitcase ample enough to last 4 months of European adventure.

Tuesday: I leave for my fall semester at the University of London, School of Oriental*& African Studies. I'm anxious and ready. This departure is long overdue. The Brandeis semester started 3 weeks ago and since, I've just felt elsewhere, a phenomenon i'm referring to as "Hometown fever". Not that these weeks have been anything less than pleasurable. I've loved, learned, smiled, slept all while being surround by everything wonderful and familiar. Whats missing is the autonomy and newness that comes with starting a new semester on campus.

But what awaits is newer than anything Brandeis could renovate. A new campus, a new country, a new continent, a new culture. A new context for the study of African diaspora culture and history. As a student at SOAS I will be joining the likes of Super Negro Paul Robeson, Pan-Africanist liberator Kwame Nkrumah, and other notable black scholars (word to Prof. Sundiata). I am literally going to sit at the foot the the throne of Western imperialism to learn of those categorized and commodified in her pursuit of power.

I woke up in JeJu Wellness center, about an hour outside of Atlanta, starring up into a ceiling of amethyst in a jewel encrusted dry sauna. My mantra: I am free, I am open, I am ready.

Wednesday: I arrive. Literally, tumbling (face first) over my luggage on the Heathrow Express platform. Take a taxi to the orientation site check-in and sleep. the next 48 hours are informative. Advisers, former police officers, culture lecturers, funny tasting "insalata". Still free of stress, open to newness, and ready for adventure.

The SOAS crew (8/9 of us) stuck together most of orientation. I am neither the only Brandeisian or the only Woman of color. But being the only "Black AMERICAN" in a group carries a distinct otherness I found myself trying to will away.

I couldn't shake that this city, and all it's beautiful architecture is literally built on the blood of colored peoples. And the Brits themselves (warning: about to make a broad generalization based on our tour guide) embrace their imperial history unabashedly. Maybe it's just part of their dark wit. The National Gallery being full of artifacts they "stole from the weaker and won't give back." The Durbar Room being lavishly decorated with artifact gathered from when "they [we] raped and pillaged India, but it's really quite beautiful." Or maybe since the popular route of denial in regards to such crimes against humanity is unfeasible being that the crimes are vital to their history and understanding of themselves they've accepted their brutal legacy with "typical European arrogance."

The Almighty Negress

After a stall in discussion

A quiet moment is caught

between the walls

In a lecture hall

That reeks of expired teen angst

And my professor ask a question

About race

In an instant

I become

The Almighty Negress

Ebony Goddess. With the complete history of my people

Engrained into my palms. Adorned with a crown of cotton picked coils

400 years of accumulated

lessons learned

Burning beneath my skin

Red, hot, with the glow of a branding iron

Wielding itself onto the forearm

Of higher education

And that must be

Why everyone is staring

Their blank faces polarize the room.

I rise above a sea of white  curiousity

And politically correct silence. As I speak

I can’t help but imagine what they’re thinking

This lost child of 1968 spitting syllables with grammatic agility

Comparable to that of the blackest panther. I Huey their  fig newtons

Popping bubbles of illusion. Serving up nothing more

Than southern fried reality.

But Black history ain’t no cup of Sweet Tea

Every drip of melanin squeezed from

Veins rooted in the riches of African soil

Elements of my DNA

Sold to slave captures

Dragged to dungeons

Then boarded on boats

So when I tell you I’m a survivor

Accept that. The way my people bent their

Backs welcoming the burdern of white enterprise

Centuries later and we still struggle to affirm

Active positions in American society

While our mother countries mourn the

Loss of children who continue to fall

Victim to a lack of resources.

I traverse this gap, walking the hypen

Between my two identities like a tight rope

Never feeling completely at home on either side.

African-American is as much of an oxymoron

as it is a blessing.

In Ghana, I am greeted with colonial confusion

Welcomed like a stray dog, hungry

For connection to a mother tongue

stripped from me by the hand

Of capitalism. I am invisible to many.

standing in allegiance

To the good whites who come

To play with colors, never knowing what it means

To be labeled one. But the Toussaint in me

never wants to pick up the white

Crayon. We are Obroni. Foreigner.

White. But I am Black as their curious pupils,

As colored as the box of crayons.  Prodigal daughter

Of diaspora come home.

In America, I am That Girl. with the natural hair

and the hard to pronounce name.

And a house that

looks more like a museum.

I find home amongst artifacts.

A link to something bigger than oppression

A history that doesn’t begin on a cotton field

My mother reached to each end of the continent

And brought back a mosaic of identity

Hybrid  culture of my forefathers

Patchwork of Blackness

Slip stitched , knit and sewn

Black Star

Spangled Kente

Drapped over shoulders

Weak, from pushing

Tirelessly against

the pressure to assimilate.

But unified blackness is

The impermeable

Darkness cast over

The days sin.

natural revolution come

to run its course.

It is, therefore we are

& We are, therefore I am

The Almighty Negress