Meditations of an African Woman

I wanted to write this, and I wanted to write it ugly. I try very much in my writing and for the most part in my communication with people, to keep it real. When you meet me, if you are around me for long enough, you see the rawness of a real human being.

Now some of you know my shit, because I like to be the one to tell my own stories. It's cheap therapy for one thing, and it helps me deal with issues because I acknowledge them by holding them up to light. I've grown, certain doubts, insecurities and issues have been dealt with (others remain) so I can handle my business in private better today than I did yesterday.

But I still like to maintain a bone baring honesty with people. I choose to present all sides of a complicated human nature because that is what human nature often is - complicated.

Over the last two or three months, I not only lost my father, but I lost almost my entire extended family and I lost quite a few friends too. I had my psychological and spiritual stability tested to breaking point - quite literally, and I was confronted with a test that I have faced twice before and couldn't break through, until this time around.

I managed, with the support of a few true family members (blood and none blood related), to get through the threat of eviction, shutting down of bank accounts, abuse from family, theft, attacks, threats and disrespect from so called "step-family members", sitting exams after missing the entire term of school (cos my dad passed away at the start of term) during the struggle to peacefully bury my dad, admist newspaper coverage of said struggle, while struggling with my own mortgages, two previous lapses into clinical depression, and the memory two previous uncompleted degrees ...

I write this because I want you to understand what it meant to be able to go out over the holidays, let my hair down and have a good time. I want you to understand what it meant to have not gone to the doctors for anti-depressant medication to carry me through the worst of this shit. I want you to understand what it meant to have passed my mother fucking exams even though I sometimes only revised the work an hour before the exam started. I want you to understand what it meant to try (and I'm still trying) to deal with the financial implications of losing my dad at the time that I did, not knowing when or how much of my inheritance I will eventually receive. And that is not the sum total of the weight I continue to smile, laugh and dance under to this very day.

I write this, for any woman or man, white, black and every shade inbetween, who might at any point in time DENY the struggle of what it is to make it as a black person in the world today. Whether you deny the struggle of others, or you deny your own struggles. Whether you judge and scrutinize others, or you denigrate and put down yourself. I write so you can put my tear-strained and smiling eyes, my weak but grateful laugh, my sprightly yet heavy steps in MOTHERFUCKING CONTEXT, ok?

I am grateful to be standing here today with the opportunity to move forward with my dreams. I know the forces that are would NOT be trying so damn hard to stop me if there wasn't something GREAT to try to stop.

But I didn't want to front for the world. I wanted you to understand and know the meaning of my smiles, and my laughter.

I am so grateful for Barack and Michelle Obama ... but believe me people racism, racial injustice and racial inequality is still out there. We do what we have to do to live in dignity but a single person cannot claim freedom whilst our own people still live widely in chains.

We must OVERCOME our struggles whatever they may be, to focus on and serve a higher calling. And be real with it! Lets be real with one another about what it takes to make it out here. It's not about acknowledging people only when you see them start to get theirs and you forget them when they struggle. It's not about losing faith in yourself or in others when times get hard. Support from a distance if need be, but we need to feel and express that love and support however we can.

I saw a video on YouTube that distressed me ... I wept within seconds of viewing this ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvdkKkxjKdY&feature=related ... both for the black on black attack, the failure of the stronger to protect the weaker, and the turning of a blind eye by the justice system ..

Life is MORE than just getting PAID for yourSELF! Life is more than just your pain and your struggles.

Rise, my people! Mobilize, my people.