I see a familiar pattern. It’s the scent of Kush: Coconut & Beeswax candles, the humming sound of my AC, yet the soft vocals of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Goin On”. It’s the rhythm of generations beating in my chest, the ancestral flames sizzling in my fingertips. This music isn’t just mine; it’s a Black cultual collage from threads of struggle and resilience, joy and defiance, passed down through blood and bone, sweat and tears, white lies and nooses, killings galore!
My eyes close, and I see them – the brave, strong-minded women who came before me, the intelligent strong-willed men their voices rising from cotton fields and boardrooms, their stories told, untruthfully, in the clear lines of racism. I see the warriors who dreamed while chained, the poets who sang revolution in their poems. Their legacy is a torch I carry, not with fear, but with fierce. Unapologetic prideful of my soul, unapologetic powerful in my dark skin, unapologetic to my attitude towards those that hate me. I hate you too. Evil is evil, there’s no gray area or room to justify. Enough damage has been done to people of color, when will we wake up to the truths that are presented in our face. When will our superior selves commence, the good in us, the god in us; we have to start seeing ourselves as gods and not nothing lower. We have to come out of that state of fear and lost identity.
Marvin Gaye’s song plays on, its harmonies resounding with the tunes of a stolen history. But with each key, there’s a defiance, a reclamation. Those arent just melodies; it’s a war cry, a declaration of sovereignty. It’s time to be reclaimed, not just as a culture, but as a people – once kings and queens, robbed of our crowns but never our fire.
The music slows, fading into a tender echo. I hear my breath, in the silence that follows. A testament to survival, a promise to myself and those who came before. This peace, this here, it’s a sanctuary, yes, but it’s also a battleground. A place where we reclaim our narrative, rewrite our history, and rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes of oppression. The rhythm of my heart is the drumbeat of revolution, and the song I sing is the anthem of a people unbroken, reborn and ready to be heard.