Tag: spirit

For the Ladies: “Her Brown Body”

woman looking in mirror EDIT
 by Kiara Lee
Her brown body – rich in history and in melanin, endowed with girth
Surrounded by infatuation and contemplation, yet still, devoid of worth
Fingers point at her in the streets, eyes stare at her with thoughts under sheets,
A soul so tender, a soul so sweet, reduced to nothing…nothing more than a piece of meat.
Her Brown Body
But she likes it, it’s the only attention she really gets and attention is really her only wish
All eyes are on her, this — this is only as good as it’s ever gonna get
She does everything under the sun thinking, she’s thinking that she’ll find the one and she’s
Devaluing herself and her plan is to sell her body and her soul to a man
Her Brown Body
Society teaches her everything she should know
How to treat him like a king, how to let him treat her like a hoe
Her brown body accepts it because…her brown body feels neglected
If she’s not treated this way, because somewhere along the line, she forgot what respect is…
 Her Brown Body
Oh how dignified she should be and how tall she should stand
Because back in the day, her brown body was an exhibit, just look at Sarah Baartman
A South African slave, her body parts were put on display, European men made her dance butt naked ball and chain and in a cage
The twerking and the clapping of today ain’t nothin’ new they say…it was FORCED on her brown body back in those days…
 Well today, her brown body is just the same
Playing HERSELF cheap this time, all pain, no gain
A queen caged and ashamed, too afraid to let her true royalty reign
Exploited and displayed, a new age slave chained to an age old game
Her Brown Body
Her Brown Body — all hurt and no worth
A list of insecurities as long as her weave, her love for self as short as her skirt
Beautiful brown skin and a beautiful spirit within — things to adore
or things to deplore, an all-out war, where only a MAN can even out the score.

Til They Can’t Bleed No More

Til they Can’t Bleed No More

defeat pic edited

There’s a young black woman somewhere who will never exercise her right to vote because she has absolutely no want or (in her opinion) need to do so. She’s criticized for what most would call ignorance, but what she simply calls living her life. The masses put her down for the slap in the face she’s giving the trailblazers before her, the people who sacrificed themselves, both literally and figuratively for black voting rights. Yet and still, she knows no different, all she knows is that her vote and her voice are mute and moot. Spiritually spent, yet perfectly content.

Defeat is a way of life for her and many many others.

So many people are defeated. Down and out. Out for the count. And it’s easy to dismiss them. They’ve given up, you say. They’ve taken the L, you say. They’ve lost the fight without even trying to get a lick in, you say.

It’s significantly easier to label helplessness as weakness than to take the time to find out what exactly has torn down our brothers and sisters, and how and why they have been robbed of their thunder. The power of oppression, the long lasting effects of history and institutionalized degradation are all underestimated to the umpteenth degree on a daily basis.

The fight for equal voting rights for blacks was (and many will argue, still is) a long and arduous fight. Lives were snuffed out and voices were drowned out. People like Jimmie Lee Jackson were physically shut up – young Jimmie killed and his frail and elderly grandfather nearly beaten to death in 1965 – for rallying for equal voting rights in Selma, Alabama. With the close relationship between advocating for equal voting rights and punishment and even death, who is to question black apathy toward such an alleged natural right? And when this apathy transfers to the 21st century, it can turn into complete disassociation. You have a young woman with no interest to vote…because she never learned anything about it. Her mother never took her to the voting booth…because her parents never took her to the voting booths…because their parents were threatened with lynching if they even spoke of voting or the NAACP or anything related to forward thinking for blacks in the Jim Crow south.

It runs deep.

Some people’s spirits are intact while others have been broken, broken again and beaten, over and over again, ‘til they can’t bleed no more. I’m talking about the broken spirit. Treat it the same way as you would a wingless bird. A wingless bird — full of potential, but also, full of defeat. A defeat as heavy as a ton of bricks.

So next time you’re so quick to judge, chastise and turn your nose up to people you consider to be less progressive, or less conscious or less educated than you, tie a ton of bricks to your back and try to fly.