Blood on the Floor
Went to see “Colored Girls” the other night. It broke me down, ripped me open, left me naked and bleeding profusely. Before I find my clothes and clean up the crusting blood, I want to talk to ya’ll.
Can somebody please tell me WTF is going on? Everywhere I turn, I see us hating on, hating each other. I’m too yellow; he’s too black. She’s educated; he’s not. He got out of the ghetto; she’s walking the stroll. She says, “A Salaam Alaikum”; he says, “Praise the Lord”. In this Amerikkka where we’ve been begging for acceptance for nearly 5 centuries, we can’t even, won’t even accept and love ourselves? Dr. Laura can’t say ***** without losing her job and she was just asking a question. Yet we say it to each other every day, through our actions and out our mouths and don’t fix your mouth to tell me it’s some privileged term of endearment. We spit it with the vitriol, disdain and hate no wanting to keep breathing Caucasian has dared to muster since the 80s – at least not publicly.
I hear you muttering, but stop with the BS; this ain’t about DR. Laura; it’s about you and me. See I was there sister COGIC when you called brother NOI by that name. Oh don’t gloat brother flagman; I heard what you called sister PHD when she walked by, nose held so high a raindrop would drown her. And girlfriend I didn’t miss what you said about my dreads. It ain’t just you; I’m guilty too. I said the same when you rolled your eyes from up under that weave. Are we ever going to grow past the point where you judge my freckles and I your big thighs?
I know when you became my enemy; it was the day that black girl cut my hand to see if I bled black or white. I never forgave you for not understanding that the price of yellow skin is rape. I couldn’t/can’t understand why you don’t know how desperately I need you. Why don’t know that it is only in your ebony skin that I can see reflected that which is royal and unashamed in me. I know the anger I feel when I see that word in your eyes, is rooted in the love I have for you. The love I am afraid to share, because I fear your rejection. I have never fit the definition of “Black enough” or even been able to determine concretely what that is. But I know that I love you.
Our babies/my babies are dying daily in droves on street corners and in jails, babies that I/you love. Our children are giving over their minds to drugs and their bodies to HIV in staggering numbers, and look at us, too busy infighting to do anything about it. Yeah we whine and protest, but even that is rendered ineffectual by our factions and fractures. There’s another dead child in the street, unarmed and college, no graveyard, bound and we exact no justice, not even meaningful retribution, because we’re too busy fighting about whether Al, Tavis or some faction of wanna be Panthers is going to get the TV time. I’ll say it; ***** please – like any of them are relevant beyond giving the white media somebody to label a black leader, because Lord and Allah know we ain’t got one.
What is it going to take for us to say yes God? I apologize to my Islamic brothers and sisters; I don’t know the Koran, but in the Bible God asks, ”How can you say you love me who you cannot see and hate your brother who you can see?” I’m asking too. How can we say we’re revolutionaries when we only love Africans and only them if they think like us? How can we say we’re Christians if we refuse to shine light in those places we’ve labeled dark? I can’t quote your scripture but I’m guessing it’s counterproductive NOI, to dismiss your unenlightened, under or mis-educated brother/sister as a fool.
Take a look around my sister, my brother. We must lay our issues with one another out on the table, clean out the infection and let our wounds heal. We must admit our deep and eternal need for each other – my blood runs through your blood runs though your/my veins. Whatever our ideological/theological disagreements they do not transcend our love for our children, our need to eat or our desire/right to live in a world where the courts do not rule it justifiable homicide when a young man dies for driving his car while being black. For the sake of all we hold dear, can we change our focus? When I see you/you see me today, can we look to our sameness? I will honor the scars on your hands from picking cotton; if you’ll remember and honor how yellow came to be and let us never again forget, that though unseen, we share the scars on our backs, hearts and spirits. Let us ask forgiveness of each other for all we’ve assumed, forgotten and ignored; let us extend forgiveness to each other for all we’ve suffered. My sisters, let us no longer blame our men because they couldn’t protect or provide for us and brothers, your anger is misdirected. We did not ask to be raped nor to live in fear that uplifting your manhood would cost you and us your life.
It ain’t my fault; it ain’t your fault. Still I’m sorry for the pain, the degradation, the loneliness and fear I blamed you for and I forgive you, for like me, being trapped in this place that dared you be what I needed, what you needed, what you/I/we were created to be. I love you with everything I am or ever will be and I implore, admonish and beg you to love one another. I’ve made it my business to study revolutionaries from Jesus to George Jackson. Know what they all have in common? They all knew that lasting change could only be born of completely committed, conscious love. I’ma put my clothes on now.
Can somebody please tell me WTF is going on? Everywhere I turn, I see us hating on, hating each other. I’m too yellow; he’s too black. She’s educated; he’s not. He got out of the ghetto; she’s walking the stroll. She says, “A Salaam Alaikum”; he says, “Praise the Lord”. In this Amerikkka where we’ve been begging for acceptance for nearly 5 centuries, we can’t even, won’t even accept and love ourselves? Dr. Laura can’t say ***** without losing her job and she was just asking a question. Yet we say it to each other every day, through our actions and out our mouths and don’t fix your mouth to tell me it’s some privileged term of endearment. We spit it with the vitriol, disdain and hate no wanting to keep breathing Caucasian has dared to muster since the 80s – at least not publicly.
I hear you muttering, but stop with the BS; this ain’t about DR. Laura; it’s about you and me. See I was there sister COGIC when you called brother NOI by that name. Oh don’t gloat brother flagman; I heard what you called sister PHD when she walked by, nose held so high a raindrop would drown her. And girlfriend I didn’t miss what you said about my dreads. It ain’t just you; I’m guilty too. I said the same when you rolled your eyes from up under that weave. Are we ever going to grow past the point where you judge my freckles and I your big thighs?
I know when you became my enemy; it was the day that black girl cut my hand to see if I bled black or white. I never forgave you for not understanding that the price of yellow skin is rape. I couldn’t/can’t understand why you don’t know how desperately I need you. Why don’t know that it is only in your ebony skin that I can see reflected that which is royal and unashamed in me. I know the anger I feel when I see that word in your eyes, is rooted in the love I have for you. The love I am afraid to share, because I fear your rejection. I have never fit the definition of “Black enough” or even been able to determine concretely what that is. But I know that I love you.
Our babies/my babies are dying daily in droves on street corners and in jails, babies that I/you love. Our children are giving over their minds to drugs and their bodies to HIV in staggering numbers, and look at us, too busy infighting to do anything about it. Yeah we whine and protest, but even that is rendered ineffectual by our factions and fractures. There’s another dead child in the street, unarmed and college, no graveyard, bound and we exact no justice, not even meaningful retribution, because we’re too busy fighting about whether Al, Tavis or some faction of wanna be Panthers is going to get the TV time. I’ll say it; ***** please – like any of them are relevant beyond giving the white media somebody to label a black leader, because Lord and Allah know we ain’t got one.
What is it going to take for us to say yes God? I apologize to my Islamic brothers and sisters; I don’t know the Koran, but in the Bible God asks, ”How can you say you love me who you cannot see and hate your brother who you can see?” I’m asking too. How can we say we’re revolutionaries when we only love Africans and only them if they think like us? How can we say we’re Christians if we refuse to shine light in those places we’ve labeled dark? I can’t quote your scripture but I’m guessing it’s counterproductive NOI, to dismiss your unenlightened, under or mis-educated brother/sister as a fool.
Take a look around my sister, my brother. We must lay our issues with one another out on the table, clean out the infection and let our wounds heal. We must admit our deep and eternal need for each other – my blood runs through your blood runs though your/my veins. Whatever our ideological/theological disagreements they do not transcend our love for our children, our need to eat or our desire/right to live in a world where the courts do not rule it justifiable homicide when a young man dies for driving his car while being black. For the sake of all we hold dear, can we change our focus? When I see you/you see me today, can we look to our sameness? I will honor the scars on your hands from picking cotton; if you’ll remember and honor how yellow came to be and let us never again forget, that though unseen, we share the scars on our backs, hearts and spirits. Let us ask forgiveness of each other for all we’ve assumed, forgotten and ignored; let us extend forgiveness to each other for all we’ve suffered. My sisters, let us no longer blame our men because they couldn’t protect or provide for us and brothers, your anger is misdirected. We did not ask to be raped nor to live in fear that uplifting your manhood would cost you and us your life.
It ain’t my fault; it ain’t your fault. Still I’m sorry for the pain, the degradation, the loneliness and fear I blamed you for and I forgive you, for like me, being trapped in this place that dared you be what I needed, what you needed, what you/I/we were created to be. I love you with everything I am or ever will be and I implore, admonish and beg you to love one another. I’ve made it my business to study revolutionaries from Jesus to George Jackson. Know what they all have in common? They all knew that lasting change could only be born of completely committed, conscious love. I’ma put my clothes on now.
Hi Michelle, your writing is beautiful. Been thinking of you lately, got behind on my email, so I owe you a couple. Stick around for a while, okay?