Younger, Gifted & Black

"To be young, gifted and black,
Oh what a lovely precious dream
To be young, gifted and black,
Open your heart to what I mean"
~ Nina Simone, "Young, Gifted, & Black"

This weekend I celebrated my mother's 50th birthday, what a blessing. The funny part is my family wanted me to deliver a speech I wrote at seventeen about black women to salute her. So I thought since my past met me on Saturday, I would let you see how I became this way.

A memory that stays with me about this speech is that I delivered it my high school for an assembly and a young sista working there for the American Corps told me that I should be careful who I pay homage to in black women's history in a pretentious attitude. At the time I did not understand her and I still believe she could have demonstrated her point a bit more eloquently--I was seventeen! Now, I see where the sister was coming from. Some of the women I highlight in my speech, Madame C. J. Walker and Oprah, specifically, do not sit right with me because of their role in our history. Ironically, they both represent economic growth black women, but their means of that growth trouble me today. Walker made her millions by training black women to look white. Oprah made her billions by appealing to white America's culture and shedding her own, virtually becoming the Mammie character I describe in the speech. However, I feel we should pay homage to these women if not for anything, their entrepreneurship.

We are all black women and excluding any given part of ourselves is false and counteracts sisterhood. I'm all about sisterhood, not about just criticism, though my blog may seem so. I want black women to love ourselves collectively and as Oprah once refrained, "remember our spirit[s]."


The Black Woman: Resisting and Rising from Slavery

You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lies
You may trod in the very dirt, but still like dust I’ll rise

These words of Maya Angelou explicitly describe the plight of the black woman. You see, the story starts almost four hundred years ago when the first slaves were brought to America. Africans were pulled from their native soil to a new land of desolation, tribulation, and isolation. Families were separated. Foreign languages were imposed. The dead were mourned. So in the midst of all this misery, pain, and strife, it was the black woman who had to build a family among strangers. These hard and humble beginnings of the black woman did not succeed in oppressing her, no, she rose and is still rising today. So listen to her royalty, her resistance, and her rise. Frederick Douglass in his Narrative of Slave revealed how a slave was made a man. I shall reveal how a slave was made a woman.


The motherland, filled with vast mountains, deserts, hills, and valleys is where the black woman found her roots. Heiress of powerful kingdoms and descendant of queens like Sheba and Nefertitti, she found that inner strength to survive slavery’s toil. The power to resist enabled her to endure the grueling, horrific conditions of the Middle Passage. And that same power would be essential for the survival in a new land.

Black women boarded ships as Nubian queens and disembarked, slaves. Once on this foreign soil, stereotypes, prejudices, and assumptions developed. Knowing where she came from allowed the black woman to realize that her iron chains were just a temporary substitute for the gold that had once adorned her body. Whites looked upon her as too sensual and promiscuous. Women slaves who picked rice in wet, swampy fields had to lift their skirts high above their knees to keep their clothes dry. Thus, exposing their legs and creating an image of vulgarity and indecency. The black woman was then classified as either Mammy or Jezebel, perpetuating another stereotype. Mammy, introduced to our society through a pancake box possessed a role of leadership and was well venerated and revered because she did it all. Jezebel, on the other hand, was head of the bedroom; this was her only means of survival. Usually, she would act as the master’s concubine and produce fair mulatto children to work in the big house. Like, Sally Hemmings, the quadroon concubine of President Jefferson. You see, these women had no choice of the role given to them; they were simply chosen for the job. In spite of this, the black woman’s resistance enabled her to rise.

A change in tide was first evident in 1851, when Sojourner Truth spoke the words, “Ain’t I a woman?” She would soon prove to be a superwoman since she worked the field just as hard as any man, denied her own children breast milk, and experienced the heartache of viewing her children sold away from her. Those famous words of hers told America that black women were on the rise. Women like Madame C. J. Walker became millionaires by selling hair products to the black community. Then, there’s Mary McLeod Bethune who opened a university of higher learning. Barbara Jordan had a seat for both the House and the Senate for Texas in the twentieth century. All of these women were rooted in resistance. Our royalty and our resistance have set us up to rise.

Black women have risen from the false ideals of American society to become leaders in this country. We’ve had to overcome the promiscuity that once labeled us, and resist that black face on the pancake box that’s supposed to represent us. We’ve gone from three-fifths of a person, to five-fifths. We’ve gone from leaders of the Big house, to leaders of Congress. We’ve gone from sharecroppers to millionaires. There is something special about our legacy as black women. We have risen from the deep pits of oppression and gloom to be equal if not above our white counterparts. Remember, for every Rosie, there’s an Oprah. For every Hillary, there’s a Maxine. For every Bette, there’s a Pattie. For every Britney, there’s a Beyonce. For every Judge Judy, there’s a Judge Mablean. For every Teacher of the Year, there’s a Marlene. And for every nanny, there’s a Mammy who has used her royal past as a stepping-stone to triumph. Only by remembering our royalty and resisting our oppression can we rise to victory. So my sister and my dear mother, keep on rising because Sister Maya said,

We bring the gifts that our ancestors gave,
We are the dream and the hope of the slave

Let’s rise
Let’s rise
Let’s rise

Furaha.