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Black is the color of soul and history
and culture
and love
and rhythm
and truth
and hurt
and brokenness
and nurturance
and hopefulness
and negro spirituals
and intelligence
and grit
and frustration
and generational curses destined to be broken through boundless resilience.
Black is all shades and all forms. Cannot be contained or explained.
Black is more than a color. It’s textured richness born in Africa and nourished in the bosom of mothers birthing a generation of blackness in all its forms and dimensions. Black is both darkness and light finding its comfort in the mystery of a westernized society that values acculturation over authenticity, convenience over truth, and no one ever wants to discuss the root.
The truth is buried in a black hole. In his heart. And in her subsconscious. In his home and in her womb.
Black is hidden behind the bushes of discrimination and exclusion.
It’s lurking in between prejudicial treatment.
Black is fighting for equality in between working full time jobs with unequal pay.
Black has withstood eugenics and the effort to eradicate the race.
Black has withstood slavery and the injustices of hate.
Black has withstood the civil rights movement and the war for equal rights and equal education and equal seating and equal privilege and equal respect.
Black is knowing that you’re beautiful even when no one else sees your beauty.
Black is found in the hidden figures of history buried in the shadows of colonization. Black is kinky and straight, curvy and slim, thick and voluptuous.
Black is unapologetically raw and real and honest and true.
Black is found in the clear tears streaming down into a river of pain healed only by love. Black is overtly shining in music and dance, art and sculpture, science and philosophy, history and psychology.
Black is a socially constructed idea that can not possibly be operationalized into a nice, neat tidy definition that constricts the very foundation of blackness eluding small spaces and places, thoughts and convictions and instead lives in God’s omnipotent power, infinity and beyond.
Black can be found in the cornerstone of truth in Africa’s backyard. But blackness also resides here, with us, in a sea of diversity and intersecting identities. Blackness is alive and with conviction, we must honor its true essence.
Black is bold and black is beautiful. Black is a birthright and a privilege.
Black is love.