Yesterday it was #forblackgirlssonly event, here in Joburg
at the Constitutional hill and I don’t know how I missed it, anyway to be part
of the experience I went on and searched for the hashtag just so I can marvel
at the magic that is black girls. It still amazes me that a black woman to this
day doesn’t have the freedom to love who she is without being made to feel like
she is failing others. We have been carrying this burden for far too long, we have
been expected and often coerced into putting the needs of OTHERS above our own
and as a result dying is silence as OTHERS watch from the side-lines and offer
no helping hand. Yesterday black girls around Joburg, said enough is enough, we
simply cannot carry on this way, we must
reclaim our power, show each other that we matter and stop asking it of OTHERS.
It’s time we started publicly loving and
celebrating who we are.
Only a black woman will ever understand what it means to
be a black woman, this is a space or an identity we couldn’t fully claim and be
proud of for the longest time because of OTHERS. A space that is all new to all black women, a
space we are still trying to figure out before we even navigate through it, so
it is only right that only black girls should be allowed to figure out for
themselves and by the themselves, what it means exactly to be a black woman in
a society that is dead set on muzzling us. We have had to apologise for who we
are for decades (and we still do), made to feel ashamed because we are spirited
individuals, who bring life into whatever we set our minds to, we have been
called angry and hard to please, when we say that we matter, we are enough, and
we are worthy to be loved just as we are.
So today we say enough is enough, we
are now rewriting history and making the rules and it doesn’t have to appease
everyone else because it’s not about them it’s about us. It’s about black woman
figuring out the power and responsibility that comes with being a black woman,
harnessing it so that we can be solid women, who are courageous in our different
endeavours, kind to our sisters, loving mothers and supportive partners and in turn
pass on this legacy to our daughters. This is why we cannot have this space
diluted.
Being for us and setting up a platform to anchor and
encourage each other is not centred on excluding OTHERS but on uplifting black
woman and teaching each other to love and embrace who we are, in all our sun
kissed splendor. This is a movement centred on love, recognition, acceptance, encouragement
and freedom… for OTHERS to find offence in this further proves just how much
black woman have to have this for themselves and to themselves, because clearly
we seem to be the only ones who understand why this space is necessary.
Movements such as #forblackgirlonly are important for the
uplliftment and sanity of black woman, we need a space, no in fact we have to
have a space where each and every black woman can exist and be who they are
without having to explain why they don’t fit set social constraints that want to
fit all of us in a pod and ignore that we are all individuals with stories to
tell, with a history that tried to break us and as we today stand we require
healing, not judgement. We are tired of
explaining ourselves only to be misunderstood further and our causes twisted to
make us come off as malicious and racist. We need to be in a space where we
redefine what being a black woman is all about , and how being expected to be
strong all the damn time is killing us, and we can’t even cry out because, hey
what do you know being strong is synonymous with being a black woman.
This is
why this space has to be sacred and exclusively for us, because we need to
vulnerable without fear, to talk and be real with each other without being
concerned about the needs of OTHERS as we try to tend to our own. The freedom to
have a voice be heard and understood. I hope this will be an annual event,
growing bigger and impacting the lives of black girls across the country, where
we will be reminded that we are magic. To the organisers of the event, we give
thanx.
.
Signed Proud Black Woman.
