I’m very glad that Lupita Nyong’o was voted World’s Most Beautiful Woman! So proud to see a Dark Skinned Sister Honored in this Fashion.
I read her Oscar Acceptance speech reprinted in Essence Magazine. It certainly resonated with me. Even though I’m 25 years older than her and was raised in New York City I can still hear the taunts of “Tar Baby”, monkey, Black African (Black was not Beautiful in the 1960s) from my school-mates on the playground. Watu Wasuri Use Afro Sheen came much later in late 1970s. Still light skin was in. There was a saying I heard many times growing up, “If you’re light, you’re alright. If you’re brown still around. If you’re black get back.” From straightening combs to weaves the Self-hatred becomes internalized.
Weaves looking like Davy Crockett hats perched atop uneasy heads marching LocKstep with conformity. Multi-hued raccoons skipping across Jungle Fever Brows missing nesting material in which to snuggle Eurocentric brainwashing.
Even when I went into the U.S. Army my always thick, kinky and Knappy was called a Brillo pad. I was always made to feel so ugly usually by my own Black people. I expected whites to call me the “N” Word after all this was the 1960s and my parents who knew Jim Crow by heart prepared me for rejection as a Black girl in a white dominated society. In a way I was very surprised to hear that in a Black dominated/ruled society/country such as Kenya young Lupita experienced similar taunts, jibes and insults.
Many times I would come home from school crying. I hated my skin color and my hair texture. My father tried to soothe my broken spirit and build my self confidence by telling me, “The Blacker the Berry the sweeter the juice. If the berry’s too light it has no use.” I did feel better for a while but it was not until I was well past age 40 that I began to really appreciate being dark-skinned with coarse thick hair. For one thing now that I’m well past 50 all this wonderful melanin truly means, “Black Don’t Crack”. As for my hair menopause has removed the thick & coarse texture but I’m proud to wear my hair natural since age 36. Over the years there were times when I battled a Eurocentric mindset but as I journey through middle-age and beyond I embrace and am one with my African heritage.
Yes Ladies, “Say it Loud! I’m Black and I’m Proud!”
As a Black Woman who has been called skinny, bony, stick lady, po’ and various other negative names for years. I can understand wanting to fit in. I’ve actually had women especially Black women come up to me and tell me they hate me or call me some nasty names I won’t repeat. I remember gaining a lot of weight when I was in my 40s due to taking anti-depressants. Believe it or not I received tons of compliments from my African American co-workers.
Prior to my forties, when I was a young woman working in an office, co-workers would leave all types of cookies, cakes, snacks, even cans of Ensure telling me in a not so subtle way that I needed these foods to “fatten up” and become an accepted member of the tribe. If my weight suddenly ballooned to 195 lbs, something that is genetically impossible for me, but if those numbers did rise would my Black Woman Membership card arrive in the mail?
Right before I started work at my present job I stopped taking the anti-depressants. Of course I lost the weight. Sadness. Bullying from some female co-workers. One brother told me I had a body like a white woman. Someone else said I looked Asian. I love my Caucasian and Asian Sisters but like anyone else I want to be accepted by my own community. I want to fit in. Devastated. I cried myself to sleep many nights. I even tried to explain to my female co-workers that my thinness was due to genetics, which is true. My mother Mable Palmer never weighed more than 95 lbs in her life even after having kids.
BTW my mother had diabetes as does most of my family on my mother side. Many of my cousins my around my age, (I’m 54) have died from the disease. I had my own brush with death November 7, 2008 when I was rushed to the hospital from my job for extreme high blood pressure. To show you how brainwashed I was as I lay on the hospital gurney in the emergency hooked to a machine monitoring my pressure, my life passing before my eyes, I looked down at my thighs and felt shame because I was so thin!
Like most women I look like my mother. I carry her DNA. Also since I have high blood pressure I can no longer eat certain foods so that prevents me from gaining additional weight. I weigh about 117 or 120 depending. Am I a fat basher? No because I know from firsthand experience just how sensitive weight issues and the ensuing insults or assumptions can be. I want to know how my weight got to be a determination of how Black I am or how womanly I am.
Does everything depend on the size of a woman’s breasts or butt? Have I been banished to a leper colony of neo-Blackness? Is a woman not more than her body? When do we stop promoting the superficial and concentrate on substance. Sometimes I think my body type has made me an outcast. Does the fact that I’m slim make mean my membership in the African race has been revoked?
I’m not handing in my Black card just because my facial features and body structure are considered all wrong. Oh by the way does my dark skin and nappy hair get me reinstated to the Land of Negritude? Define Blackness! Does it not run deeper than the outside package?
Finally I confided in one of the African American supervisors what I was going through. He reassured me I looked fine and said I looked good. He explained to me that some of the females at our workplace were jealous.
Then after 50 I started gaining a little weight. Thank you Menopause for helping me enter the realm of semi-Rubenesque. I was received back into the fold, somewhat but I still get those funny looks and comments not only at work but even within my own ‘hood.’
Books with titles like “Skinny Women are Evil” do not help the situation. I hate that our patriarchal society has pitted one group of women against others even within our own race. So if I was stacked, voluptuous, a “brick house” would I then hear the Gooble Gobble song.
Okay you know that I was intrigued by this picture. Anything to add curves to my stick frame. I looked up Squat videos on YouTube and found one that “Looked easy.” Not!! As I was doing the squats I could hear my knees Snap, Crackle & Pop more than a bowl of Rice Krispies. Maybe I should forget the Donkey Booty and just stay a “Black Twiggy!”
This is a Squat video by a Colombian Sister. Really now it would just be much easier to be reincarnated into her body!! LOL!! OMG!! Isn’t there an easier way to snag a husband? If I click my heels together 3 times will my stomach fat move downward towards my butt or upward to my boobs?! Dang my knees are creaky and clicking more than Savion Glover tap dancing!
Still trying to return to the Summer of 42. Not 1942 because I wasn’t yet born but age 42 when I had a nice hourglass figure. So I’ve been planking since Dec. 1st and now I will add Squats to my program. Let’s see if all this exercise results in romance when I turn 55 in Feb.
I considered using one of my cats as weights but they would not cooperate and thought the better of that idea. Leave sleeping kitties lying on the bed. My cats already think I’m crazy for Planking. Now every morning Sylvester and Weezer take up a position in the Living Room watching me make a fool of myself and sometimes rubbing their little furry faces against mine.
My friend Author Catherine Townsend-Lyon is truly Awesome and Amazing!! Cat! Thanks for the Vote of Confidence! Thank you for having faith in me! I’m touched that you chose to re-post my humble blogs. My major goal in life has been to touch other women’s lives. To encourage and support Women. To uplift All My Sisters Worldwide No Matter what race, religion, faith, ethnic group, or country. I’m so very honored that you decided to share my writing!! God Bless you My Beloved SisterFriend!! Much Love to You!!
I will not be typecast by the slant of my eyes, the color of my skin or country of origin.
I am a Woman of faith of dignity who demands and commands respect.
I refuse to suffer indignities of your racist sexist perversions.
I follow the laws of God as dictated by my belief system whatever it may be.
I am not an exotic playtoy or life size Barbie doll existing only to gratify, satisfy or fulfill your twisted sadistic carnal predilections.
I am not the one and today is not your day.
I will not be afraid and will not back down.
I am not a victim.
I am more than a survivor.
I am defiant.
You do not have license to ill.
My height, weight, shape do not delineate me as a loose woman or a hot number.
I am not your Ethiopian Chocolate Fantasy or submissive Asian delight found in the back covers of men’s magazines.
I am not your Indian Maiden with feathers in her hair or a sari wrapped around her waist.
If I’m a Lesbian nothing between your legs will make me straight and certainly does not impress me.
Whatever fever you got, be it Jungle Fever, Yellow Fever, Red Fever, Hot Spicy Latina Fever, I’m about to throw cold water all over it and knock you out cold. Get over yourself. You’re not all that and a bag of chips.
I choose who, when, where and if I will lay my body down.
I am the Goddess and only the worthy may gain access to the Temple. As Women we are called to maintain order in the Universe. Ladies ~ Realize your calling.
Asshole Repellent
Ladies sexual abuse, workplace bullying and sexual harassment is the Elephant in the Room that everybody sees but fails to acknowledge its presence. Instead we step lightly around him hoping he will go away of his accord. Do not remain silent. Speak up. Speak out.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. – Hamlet (1.5.166-7), Hamlet to Horatio
2 Corinthians 12:3-4
New International Version (NIV)
3 And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows— 4 was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell.
Lately I’ve been having some very odd spiritual experiences. They are akin to the TV program Quantum Leap where the guy leaps into another person’s body or even more personal like the protagonist in the Octavia Butler novel, Kindred. Mine is not quite that spectacular but it began last year with my mother’s spirit speaking through me to create a memoir for her. Even though my Mom has been deceased since 1998 it was like she and I were one flesh. The stimulus was a rather unpleasant family disagreement but that one trigger melded our spirits and I began to feel the emotions she had over 50 years ago concerning my Brother Stephen’s developmental disability. All the hurt, pain, sadness, anguish and depression she felt when she was unjustly accused of causing her beloved son’s autism surfaced within my spirit.
I just began to write and write over the course of the last 7 or 8 months. Then after finding out some interesting family history concerning my maternal grandmother again I began to experience her emotions. Then a few days ago when I was posted in the Civil War Photography exhibit at my museum, once more an ancestor’s thoughts and emotions came to me. My Great, Great Grandfather William Henry Halstead fought in the Civil War. There was a steady stream of visitors but everyone was quiet, calm, serious, deeply affected by what they were seeing. During the course of the day as I walked through the photographs taking everything in it was like I began to see through the eyes of my Great, Great Grandfather. I could hear the sounds of battle, the screams of pain from injured soldiers, feel his adrenaline as he surged forth with his 29th CT. Colored Regiment brothers. All I can say it was like I was in his head. I had to make an effort to turn off so I could finish my day without freaking out. Even now I feel he is still with me even though I never met him. Maybe this is genetic memory. All the memories of our ancestors stay with us though we are separated by time but not necessarily by eternity. As a writer it gives a different aspect and flavor to my writing but it is a very strange sensation and I don’t know what to make of this new development.
William H. Halstead name as inscribed on the Colored Soldiers Monument in Washington, DC
It happened last year as I was making a Family Photo collage for the Employee Art Show. It was as though family members long deceased most whom I never got the chance to meet were telling me where to place all the photos within the collage. Very strange.
Ancestor Branches
I’m beginning to wonder if I’m some type of an Empath like on Star Trek.
Empaths have the ability to scan another’s psyche for thoughts and feelings or for past, present, and future life occurrences. Many empaths are unaware of how this actually works, and have long accepted that they were sensitive to others.
I posed my questions to the FB Black Ancestry page and received several intuitive responses.
“I’ve been chosen as a Portal by my family members who have passed on.
Some inanimate objects do have an impressed energy and will release to an open mind/spirit. Some good, some negative. In your case, the familiar of family to present themselves to you to share an understanding of who they were to help others in their journeys here.”
While in the Egyptian Wing of the museum I also felt a spiritual connection to this woman perhaps Queen Tiye whose face graces a canopic jar.
William Henry Halstead Headstone ~ Sleepy Hollow
The Battle scene I heard while in the Civil War Photography exhibit as described by one of my Great, Great Grandfathers fellow soldiers. http://conn29th.org/stories.htm
Maybe my Great, great grandfather is trying to connect with me. Sometimes I wonder why he speaks to me. Also I never had experiences of this magnitude when I was younger. I did have visions between the ages of 4 and 5 but I never told my parents for fear they would think I was nuts. These visions began again after I turned 50. I’m 54 now. An odd age for the portal to reopen. Now I know why he waited nearly 150 years not just for me to make an appearance on this earth but he waited for “The One”. The Anointed One who would be able to tell the stories of the ancestors and who could make Spiritual Consolation so their souls could be at rest.
In December of 1863 my Great Great Grandfather, William Henry Halstead, who lived in Tarrytown, New York, traveled to New Haven, Connecticut to join the 29th Connecticut Colored Infantry. On his Volunteer Enlistment papers it notes his occupation as a farmer. He enlisted for three years and was discharged on the 24th day of October 1865. He married and had five children. William Henry Halstead passed away in 1888 and was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Tarrytown, New York. His wife moved to New York City with her five children. Her children grew up in Harlem and belonged to various organizations such as Odd Fellows, Ladies of the Grand Army of the Republic and the Daughters of New York.
Sp4 Palmer, 569th PSC & 101st Airborne Division.
Deborah Ann Palmer U.S. Army 1977-1981
I’m glad my spirit is open and that some family members have decided to reconnect through the veil of life and death to communicate with me. I would say that they don’t want to be forgotten by current and future generations. I am Chosen to tell their stories.
Espiritu en Fuego/A Fiery Spirit 