I waited all my life to do this.
When that oil hit my skin as I stood in the shuffle of black bodies making themselves blacker in tradition of resistance, I cried.
I was raised in traditions of pinching noses and punishing children for their innate passion for adventure because they were making themselves too black. I was made to sing to white colonial powers, the powerful words, from my powerful lungs, "LONG TO REIGN OVER US".
Made to feel less than for jumping too high, screaming too loud, eating too much, being too rough, wining too good, walking too wild, thinking and expressing too differently. Even now, being accepted, but now being lauded because of the audaciousness of being myself, because I am OTHER.
So when Aug 12 hit, 2 days after I turned 35, and I found myself at 4 in the morning, surrounded by the clank of broken chains dragging along roads we walked freely, surrounded by rough, tough, wild, loud people armed and ignited by the sounds of iron, bass, aggression, tradition, rebellion and resistance, ridiculing what the oppressors told us we were - black devils.
The Jab Jab.
I bawl.
I bawl for myself and for the other "others", feeling not so other anymore.
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