Some people look at me in shock -- or disbelief -- when they discover that I have rejected the western ideology of beauty. I have no reservations in rejecting the very clever fuckery that is currently being sold to the masses of self-hating people, whom I will respectfully call Sheep. I have abandoned the need to feel validated by anyone other than myself. I seek no permission to be black like ten thousand nights. I embrace my hue. I need not swallow the intellectual cyanide down my throat where I am constantly being told that I am not worthy of greatness. I can be beautiful, admired, adored and have little girls looking up to me in a way where there are inspired to be their authentic selves. Anyone who states otherwise is a liar.
Many recoil from the vision of their Ancient Mother. We reject her hips, lips, thighs, nose and hair. Why? We are ashamed of her and do not want to be reminded of who we really are. It's been a clever program that many of us I have bought into. Kola Boof, one of my favorite authors, has said it all too clear: the black woman is a walking billboard celebrating the beauty of white women.
Think about it. Is this what we have been reduced to? Setting fire to our hair in a feeble attempt to manipulate the texture so that it can be straight like their hair? Or glueing the silky and wavy hair unto our scalp to perpetrate another lie -- we have "Indian" in our family? Or baking the cake on our face and -- if that doesn't work -- you can become a bleacher? Is what you really look so demonized? So ugly? Why do you believe it?
Shit. I almost believed it. And why not? The Lie is all around us. Everyday, the Lie reminds us that we are not enough. Just turn on the TV -- the Lie is broadcasting to us. Pick up a magazine -- the Lie reads to us. Look at your brother -- the Lie speaks through his loins as he breeds you out of existence.
Thin out your big africanoid nose. Lighten your skin. Cover your crown with a Wig of low self esteem, specially made for you by our nice foreign friends who know all to well of your self hatred. But hey, slaves like you can always be sold, right? For the right price -- beauty. Put whose currency of beauty are you dealing in? Whose idea of beauty are you trying to measure up to?
I am a Musician and I wear the mark of my ancestors. My ancestors. Not the straight haired, milk toasted deity you apparently worship at the whim of the Lie. Nor do I desire to. The Lie may have her own beauty but that does not mean that I must minimize my own. I love my Mother. I love the gifts she gave me. These lips. These eyes. This skin. This nose. This hair. I don't have to push my Mother in the closet and hide who I am by pretending to be one of the Lie. You keep the Lie. I'll continue to bow down to the beauty of my ancestors and the ancient indigenous ones. The beautiful wild ones who were untouched by the western hands of beauty. The ones who walked in their bodies, adorning their noses with jewels, wearing the natural crowns on their heads. That is the beauty I bleed from. My Mother. I celebrate her Goddess. I want my daughters and sons that remember this beauty and offer prayers to the purity of it.
But many of brothers shun me for the siren song of the Lie. My sisters reject me for the call of the Lie. Ironically, at the same time, others embrace me wholeheartedly and recognizing who I really am. It's in the blood ... deeper than you think. They know who I am spiritually, yet my own people do not. How did you forget? What spell have you been under? How long will you not remember who I am? Who you are?
Sometimes I wonder how in the hell will I be perceived in this music industry where I will be the first one to look like me. Will I be embraced or thrown away? Will the Goddess be chosen, or will the Lie continue to be desired -- a cheaper, sexier and lighter carbon copy of the original me.
Just a thought.
