I have been thinking about self-hatred a lot for a few weeks and I’d love to hear your thoughts about it. If you’ve been following this blog at all you can imagine that my musings have stemmed from the dialogue generated by my post Brothers (in the other sense of the word) in which I kick around the idea of inter-racial dating.
The comments evoked by that post have really caused me to want to dig deeper into an examination of my perspectives on race on tons of levels. And, there seems to be no more logical place to start than an examination of my thoughts about my own. Let me give you some background.
By any reasonable persons phenotypic assessment of me, I am Black. Call me African-American if you like, but that’s where things start to get problematic for me. I contain healthy doses of Black, Irish and Native American. And while I can give you the names of my Irish and Native American ancestors, I’d have a far tougher time distilling out the “pure” Blacks, or Africans, “pure” African Americans (if ever there were an oxymoron). I’ve always been frustrated by that term because it says so little about who we really are as a people, or better yet as peoples, and still there are so many stereotypes that resonate with its utterance. I prefer Black. That’s me.
Despite anyone else’s assessment of me, I can honestly say that I am at a place in my life where I love me. I believe I am beautiful. I wouldn’t trade my hips, hair, breasts, lips, thighs or nose for anyone’s (though I am committed to shedding these pounds I’ve packed on over the last few years….another post all together). I love being a Black woman. I love the rhythm of our music, the soul in our essence, the bond that makes the only two Black people in a room talk to each other like they’ve grown up together. I love our beauty, our diversity, our tremendous determination to survive…and more than survive, to thrive. I love that Black female preemies have the highest survival rate of any premature babies. We’re fighters. We’re survivors. And I love that.
I hate that there are aspects of our history and of our very real present that have forced us into survival mode. I fear that much our potential as a people and as individuals has been squandered because we’ve learned to live in survival mode and we think it’s normal, we think it’s all there is. I hate seeing our people living life on the defensive, carrying chips on our shoulders that weigh us down, hold us back. I grieve for those of us who have no other option than survival. I am frustrated with those who choose not to exhaust all available options to thrive.
And it’s precisely this frustration that has me thinking about self-hatred. So, I looked it up and here’s what I found. The quote is from Wikipedia, “the encyclopedia anyone can edit”. But I thought, what better definition than the one that resonates with the culture. Here’s what I found. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
You may be visiting this blog and identify as something other than Black. Please don’t hesitate to post your comments. You are safe here. Your voice is welcome.
Self-hatred literally refers to an extreme dislike of oneself, or being angry at oneself. The term is also used to designate a dislike or hatred of a group to which one belongs. For instance, ‘ethnic self-hatred’ is the extreme dislike of one’s ethnic group. Accusations of self-hatred are often used as an ad hominem attack.
The term ’self-hatred’ is used infrequently by psychologists and psychiatrists, who would usually describe people who hate themselves as ‘persons with low self-esteem‘. Some people think that self-hatred and shame are important factors in some or many mental disorders, especially disorders that involve a perceived defect of oneself (e.g. body dysmorphic disorder). “Ethnic self-hatred” is considered by some people as being a cultural issue, to which psychological theories have limited relevance.
Black self-hatred
Black self-hatred is generally defined as a Black person who hates his Black racial identity and may try to distance himself from this identity. Like Jewish self-hate, there is some disagreement as to what it means to be Black. Some Black people feel that those who demonstrate a preference for clothing styles, music choices, etc. that have been predominantly associated with white culture are self-hating. Thus for them being Black is more just one’s skin color. Some, such as journalist John Carlson, have suggested that gangsta rap is a form of Black Self-hatred. In his view, when Black rappers portray Black women as “bitches” and “whores” and Black men as “worthy of respect only in relation to their capacity to kill or maim others” they are essentially expressing a form of self-hate with basically buying into and propagating, through their music, racist stereotypes about Black people. This term has been used by Black supremacist groups to defend racism.
Black self hatred can show itself in the form of embarassment or shame in those things that are culturally identified with African heritage. It is ingrained in subtle ways from childhood. A person becomes reluctant to share or perpetuate activities or traditions that have in the past cause them pain. They come to hate those things and in extention themselves.
What do you guys think? What is self-hatred? What does it look like in any form? How easy is it to spot in others? In ourselves?
Les deseo Self-Love!
Lexi
Okay, Alexis and I just had the following conversation about this entry. Maybe this will add some fuel to the fire for you…
katrice0321: Wow… I need to think before I respond to the Self-Hatred blog.
alexis_dickens: take your time.
katrice0321: Okay. This is something I have never thought about and I’m sure there’s some feeling I have about it.
alexis_dickens: like i said. take your time. a line in Kwesi’s poem really compelled me to post what i’ve been thinking about for a while. He said to reject a man by the color of his skin is racism.
alexis_dickens: can you be racist against your own race?
alexis_dickens: i doubt it…so what’s left?
katrice0321: I don’t know. I think you can be racist against your own race.
katrice0321: Racist is a broad term for me.
alexis_dickens: but if you are racist against your own race, aren’t your racist against yourself…therefore, self-hatred?
katrice0321: Yes.
katrice0321: And both can be present at once.
alexis_dickens: ok. i’ll wait
katrice0321: okay, cuz I need to think
katrice0321: Kwesi thinks I’m a racist.
katrice0321: I always deny it, but I need to really examine my thoughts.
alexis_dickens: ok.
alexis_dickens: towards others or us?
katrice0321: Could the fact that I automatically assume all white people hate me until they prove otherwise be racist on my part?
katrice0321: Toward others, definitely.
alexis_dickens: possibly.
alexis_dickens: i want to explore black racism in another post.
katrice0321: My feelings toward us vary. I am probably more likely guilty of excessive self-love, but does the concept exist? I think absolutely so.
katrice0321: But black people can have an awful tendency to drive me nuts though.
katrice0321: I hate to hear loud people in public places and see women with their hair in rollers walking to the store in house shoes.
katrice0321: But I ascribe this to a ghetto few, so I don’t think that’s racist.
alexis_dickens: i think we have to be able to distill out where self begins and ends…
katrice0321: and where hate begins and ends
alexis_dickens: part of the SH argument is that to hate others “like” you is to hate yourself.
alexis_dickens: now we’d never wear rollers in public, but is there any self represented in what we reject?
katrice0321: hmmm…. See this is my dilemma. When does it become hate, and when does it become race-based hate.
katrice0321: I could hate to see people in rollers because I think it’s uncouth and someone else could hate to see it because they think that’s one thing wrong with “those black people.”
alexis_dickens: if you see a white woman in rollers does it produce shame? what about a black woman? what’s the difference?
katrice0321: Exactly. I hate to see anybody do it. But I feel invested in it when it’s one of us.
alexis_dickens: right
katrice0321: For the same reason I feel shame when fellow Christians meet you in the store and break out in lou tongues in the middle of telling you how they’ve been.
katrice0321: *loud
alexis_dickens: exactly. let’s add Christian to the Self-hatred discussion.
katrice0321: It embarrasses me because we wear the same name.
alexis_dickens: Save this IM and post it!
katrice0321: LOL!
katrice0321: I will.
Racism can be turned towards your own race. Intra-racism is another term used. It is seen as a form of self-hatred. Feeling as if a white person has to prove themselves to you does not mean you are racist, but you may not help the fight to end racism. There are degrees of racism or “cultural competence”, if you will. Those who help perpetuate it, those who avoid it and those who fight it. There are two others I can’t think of.
Self hatred is so broad. Race or ethnicity is only one of so many things a person can despise. Does dating outside of your race equal self-hatred? Hardly; unless pre-meditated. If you purposely do not date a person because they are Black and only because they are Black then yes, you are looking at self hatred. But if you do not date a Black man because of past trauma from another Black man then you are looking at something entirely different.
If you do not want to be asociated with anything that may lead some one to associate you with Black people or being Black then you may be suffering from self-hatred. Or maybe you have ben deprived of your cultural heritage and simply do not know Black American traditions. There are som many what ifs and possible situations. Can you readily look for and identify self hatred in an individual? Would you say a female with relaxed hair is suffering from a form of self hatred? A person who wears their foundation a shade or two too light? A person who refuses to use or respond to any black southern dialect?
I do think the definitions are accurate except for the rap issue. I do not agree that gansta rap is self hatred. Negative, albeit, but I would not agree with it being self hatred.
Pardon me, this may seem a bit impolite but I am made to tire. Self-Hatred! Racism! This all seems so ignorant to me. Racism is defined as follows; prejudice or animosity against people who belong to other races. Self-Hatred is defined as follows, hatred or contempt for your own weaknesses or innate characteristics such as ethnicity or race. Do you know how race is defined? It’s defined as follows; any one of the groups into which the world’s population can be divided on the basis of physical characteristics such as skin or hair color. Okay so all of this bunk over hair and skin.
The beginning of racism is the defining of one based on one’s hair, skin or the slant in one’s eyes. If we really want to deal with racism we must stop defining people this way.
I think not being able to see a person beyond their skin and the color of their hair is self hatred. I think the inability or refusal to forgive others who have messed up just like we have (based on the skin color groupings) is self hatred. I think to define me based on the color of my skin is hatred, hated of me and hatred of the one race that God created, human. When does it end? When do we stop aligning ourselves with the skin of other people and do the hard work of getting to know people? We are to darn lazy!
Heck! If you think you can know me based on my skin or my size or my hair, please! How can you not identify with all the skin groupings? Here’s a bigger problem, if you don’t love all the skin groupings, all the hair groupings, all the size groupings, all the skill groupings, you can’t love God. Does that then mean that self hatred is equal to God Hatred? Answer that.
Struck a nerve, did we? lol
In an ideal world, love would have no color, right?
The only problem is, we don’t live in an ideal world. But failing to change contributes to the broken state of the universe.
So the question becomes, when do we each begin to contribute to changing this flawed society we live in by changing our own views? I, for one, have to learn to give all God’s children the benefit of the doubt.
OK, now we’re talking!!
Anonymous, thanks for your insight. One of your definitions is the one that resonates the most with me:
“If you do not want to be asociated with anything that may lead some one to associate you with Black people or being Black then you may be suffering from self-hatred”.
It’s this blanket rejection that is rooted in shame that seems to be what makes the most sense to me when we talk about this. We are all annoyed and disgusted by people all the time and just because they happen to be the same race as us does not, for me, constitute self-hatred.
When I was sharing the piece I decided not to post about black men (re: Great Guys post)I was really struggling with this topic. I think I’ve concluded that there’s nothing wrong with me being upset with ignorance and stupidity. Speaking of which, I watched about 15 miniutes of Baby Boy this weekend. I couldn’t handle it. I was SO disgusted. Is that self-hatred? I don’t think so.
Hey Kwesi, thanks for sharing! LMBO!!
Race does not exist biologically. NIH has spent tons of billions of dollars on the Human Genome Project and when it comes to race, there is not a single gene that exists solely in one “race” to the exclusion of the others and people are often more genetically similar to people from another race than individuals of the same race. We made this mess up!!
I agree. It’s all about phenotype (what somebody looks like) and a society that gets to exalt preferences. The “preferred” becomes the norm and thus the standard and all deviations become pejorative. It’s the same with language, but THAT’s another post too. (ie, who get’s to say that the King’s English is standard and not ebonics, or Spanish Spanish as opposed to Chilean Spanish). It’s a matter of preferences. But the truth is that preferences matter. Ebonics is not going to get you a job, neither will wearing rollers and house shoes to the interview.
I feel the challenge to see people as people. But it’s hard. We are not colorblind. We were not socialized to be. It’s much easier said than done.
I know that its long but please everyone read this blog…
It is June 30, 2007 far from when the original post concerning black self hatred was discussed. However, I rarely read blogs and usually never respond to them. Until I read the less than commonly known fact that black female preemies are the most likely to survive at birth. Yes we are naturally born fighters. And being that I was a biology major in college I know that white males are the least likely to survive premature birth. I often drop this little known fact and here it was in this blog so I felt moved to respond. Black self hatred is such a silent epidemic I liken it to a plague or disease that slowly robs you of not only your body but your soul, your past, your present and your future. There was once this young black male that I loved. He was beautiful inside and out. He was physcially strong but emotionally weakened by the colorism that existed in his family. I spent years trying to love it out of him and nuture him back to seeing his awesome brillance. My God this man was beautiful. But he hated himself, and though he would be the first to say the blacker the berry the sweeter the juice he would only date white women. Sistas I know you feel this. His skin was dark and flawless. His nose was broad and strong. His bone structure was like a african statue but he hated them all…secretly. I waited patiently and prayed that I could crack the code by educating him about black history and constantly complimenting him but ultimately it wasnt him but his family’s influence that ended us. They beat it into him at a very early age that he was too dark. His oldest sister married a blond blue eyed white man. His oldest bother married the same in a white women. And his next brother followed suit. Can you imagine sitting in a room where none of the kids resemble any of the parents on purpose? But I was the “black girl” a token amongst my own people. I am beautiful, esthetically pleasing and I know it but in this family I was simply the black girl. Ultimately I came to the conclusion that I can never love him enough to heal the wounds he suffered as a child-when he needed his mother to hold him. And that there is no black history lecture to soothe his pain when his own sister said that his penis would be too dark. Yes she really did. I still love him to this day, I love his soul, his smile and his heart but unfortunately I know that he can never fully love me. Sometimes I shutter at the thought that eventually his african beauty will fade into the racial ambiguity of an interracial child and only then will he be satisfied having erased those features which he so loathed.
@ loving his soul
Thank you so much for reading this post and reviving it with your comments. What a heart wrenching story. It’s so hard to love oneself when all of the messages you receive are that you’re unlovable.
I’m going to add a “Recent Comments” widget so that others will read what you had to say.
Welcome and please come back.
I enjoyed this post. It got me to thinking.
Uh-Oh, but here I Go!!! I was one of those self-hating blacks. I truly say was. I was born in the south and excelled in school. I was forever teased about trying to be “white” and only when I would purposely make mistakes was I considered “cool”. My own brother would call me white chocolate for being an honor student. When I was young, I didn’t understand why so many of my peers didn’t try to excel or consider college. Now where I was from the adults worked or didn’t have a house. There wasn’t any government housing in that part of the country and value/morale teachings were at a high. Yet, my generation seemed to be the start of the Me Generation.
After reaching my young adult years, I joined the military, finished a degree, and did very well. I still didn’t understand why many of the other Blacks, especially those from urban areas, didn’t do the same in droves. I admit at the time I found it shameful when I struggled to speak proper english while they glorified in slang when doing professional work or got loud at times it would have been better to remain calm. I dated outside my race (white, latin, and japanese), and only admitted in later years I did so due to running from my own race.
It took years of traveling, studying, knowing other, and finally knowing myself to come back full circle. I learned I didn’t have to hate my own or feel ashamed because those who did shameful acts who JUST HAPPENED TO BE OF MY RACE, didn’t fully represent my race. I took pride in our past Black heros/heroines, current ones, accomplishments, and Blacks that are making a difference today. It took a while, but wisdom comes with time.
Loved this article and Thanks.
I remember black.
I remember Santa brought white dolls
If you were lucky.
And fruit and multi-colored swirly candy,
And maybe a little trucky.
I remember that we conked our hair,
If we could afford the lye.
It burned like crazy,
‘Til it made us cry.
We bleached our skin
‘Til sores were left;
A small price to pay
To improve ourself.
We pressed our hair
With straightenin’ combs:
Hot from the stove
To make short naps long.
I remember black and proud.
I remember we said it oh so loud.
I remember what happened then:
It started a black love trend.
We cast aside our white pursuits;
‘Cause by then who gave a hoot.
I am a 38 year old black man who for most of my life (from as far back as I can remember) always identified more with Caucasians than I did with black people or black culture. I have always had Caucasian friends and speak perfect King’s English. For reasons that I can not truly explain, I have always hated the fact that I am black. For most of my life I have always felt like God was playing some cruel joke on me and I felt like a white man trapped in a black man’s body!
Scott Gray
I am a 38 year old black man who for most of my life (from as far back as I can remember) always identified more with Caucasians than I did with black people or black culture. I have always had Caucasian friends and speak perfect King’s English. For reasons that I can not truly explain, I have always hated the fact that I am black. For most of my life I have always felt like God was playing some cruel joke on me and I felt like a white man trapped in a black man’s body!
I have a idea of what you mean. I don’t necessary think I’m a white man trapped in a black man’s body but I hate the fact that “my race” is full of failures. I hate the fact that as a professional, I have to always prove to myself to my white counterparts in order to get accepted. its bullshit, why can’t black people function like the jews. Even if the ‘world’ doesn’t like us, we still do what we have to do as a group.
I think we need more black billionaires, more black own business. Really, racism will fade once black people gain economic equality but that will be handed to us. we have to apply all our creative energies into other things besides music because its all about intellectual property now a days. LOL the only way to can even with someone rich is to take their money.
I’m a white guy, and I think most white people are miffed by the concept of black self-hatred. Their unwillingness to even try to understand it is probably even more insulting to blacks. How the beauty of black people got subverted, in my mind, is one of the greatest crimes of the human race. I think slavery almost pales in comparison to it, when you look at it’s long-lasting effects. Sometimes I think I feel this way because I’m a musician. No musician, popular music or otherwise, can not have an opinion on race. I know black people hate getting stereotyped by the music/sports thing, understandably, but to me, music is a whole different level. It’s without a doubt the most powerful, mysterious, and unifying thing in the universe. It’s the language we spoke to each other before language. And to guide and have more influence on something like that more than any other race–by a long shot–to me, I can’t understand why it can’t be a more unifying source of pride for black people. I guess maybe it’s most people, even black people, view black music as being “tribalistic” or maybe even primitive. Most people who aren’t musicians don’t understand that jazz musicians like Charles Mingus or Thelonius Monk took the 400 or so years of Western music, the slowly evolving geniuses of Bachs and Mozarts, combined it with African polyrythmns, and ate the whole thing like candy in a matter of years. I’m in constant awe of that. The whole subversion of black genius, as well as physical beauty, really is one of the greatest crimes of all time. Especially so that black women take the worst of the whole thing. Science can now prove that every human on the planet is related to one woman, who was black. To say the situation is ironic would just be insulting. Anyway: I hope some of ya’ll appreciate my love letter
Peace.
While doing some Googling for discussion points on black self-hatred I ran across your blog. It caught my attention and provided fodder for my on-going discussion with a wise mentor of mine. He sent me the stuff below as part of our dialogue and published on the NPR website in 2005. I so glad that you do what you do. I may come back and look at other stuff On Secong Thought. Thanks
Allow me to weigh in with the following:
Book Excerpt: Dark Ghetto: Dilemmas of Social Power by Kenneth Clark
The Psychology of the Ghetto
It is now generally understood that chronic and remediable social injustices corrode and damage the human personality, thereby robbing it of its effectiveness, of its creativity, if not its actual humanity. No matter how desperately one seeks to deny it, this simple fact persists and intrudes itself. It is the fuel of protests and revolts. Racial segregation, like all other forms of cruelty and tyranny, debases all human beings — those who are its victims, those who victimize, and in quite subtle ways those who are merely accessories.
This human debasement can only be comprehended as a consequence of the society which spawns it. The victims of segregation do not initially desire to be segregated, they do not “prefer to be with their own people,” in spite of the fact that this belief is commonly stated by those who are not themselves segregated. A most cruel and psychologically oppressive aspect and consequence of enforced segregation is that its victims can be made to accommodate to their victimized status and under certain circumstances to state that it is their desire to be set apart, or to agree that subjugation is not really detrimental but beneficial. The fact remains that exclusion, rejection, and a stigmatized status are not desired and are not voluntary states. Segregation is neither sought nor imposed by healthy or potentially healthy human beings.
Human beings who are forced to live under ghetto conditions and whose daily experience tells them that almost nowhere in society are they respected and granted the ordinary dignity and courtesy accorded to others will, as a matter of course, begin to doubt their own worth. Since every human being depends upon his cumulative experiences with others for clues as to how he should view and value himself, children who are consistently rejected understandably begin to question and doubt whether they, their family, and their group really deserve no more respect from the larger society than they receive. These doubts become the seeds of a pernicious self- and group-hatred, the Negro’s complex and debilitating prejudice against himself.
From Dark Ghetto: Dilemmas of Social Power by Kenneth B. Clark. Copyright © 1965 by Kenneth B. Clark. Wesleyan Edition published by Wesleyan University Press in 1989. Used by permission of Wesleyan University Press.
Thanks Sean,
Its refreshing to see that someone knows how black women are not only victimized and hated by each other, but by every other race and most devastingly by black men. That’s the what I hate. Can we talk about that?
Real Brother here.
There’s no question about it 90% of American Blacks(99.9% of Blacks in the UK, Canada and Nazi Germany) hate themselves their Race and think of Whites as Superior. Black Self-hatred (including the hatred that 90% of Black women have for Black men) is the number one problem we in America face.
The Solution? We need an immediate and pervasive moritorium on all Self-hating Sellout Behavior which would mean for the next hundred years or until such time as the Self-Hate Index(SHI) drops to below 90%. From this day forward or until further notice no Black should HURT and or HARM another Black and no Black shall DATE and or MARRY outside of the Black Race.
We must first address and end the BEHAVIOR that stems from Self-hatred(Blacks HURTING and HARMING other Blacks and Blacks DATING and MARRYING outside the Race) which will lead to an erosion of the Self-hate, Sellout Mentality that causes the Sellout Behavior.
No Sellout.
TKCAL
Real Brother here.
Black Butterfly, we as Black people have to stop buying into the lies and nonsense that Black Man Hating Black Lesbians are telling.
While I’ll admit that its difficult for us as Black men to love any group of women who HATE us understand that if Black women stopped hating Black men tommorrow nobody would be happier then Black men.
Women and women only CHOOSE who they date and marry and have a baby by. Only in rare cases of rape do women not get to CHOOSE. Due to the lies of Black Man Hating Black Lesbians Black women rarely CHOSE Black men who love them, want to marry them and want to raise families with them. Most Black women use Black men for money and for sperm to raise the child alone or with the other Black Man Hating Lesbian.
All the lies about Black men being all in prison and all on the Down Low and there being a shortage of Black men and Black men abandoning Black families and wanting a White woman are all lies started by Black Man Hating Black Lesbians.
Let’s expose the Black Lesbians and we can end the lies and MYTHS that they are starting about Black men in order to recruit the 30% of Black women who aren’t gay.
No Sellout.
TKCAL
Hello,
I am not an African American Black. I am person with dark skin, born into a low caste, and I live in India.
This is a wonderful post; it addresses some of the agonies I have been going through these days.
I have a feeling that only the fair people are attractive. I have been trying to prove to myself that I am wrong for, my belief means I am not attractive, which is not something that boosts your self esteem.
I love a girl, and I am afraid to tell her just because she’s fair, and comes from an upper caste community. The more I think about it, the more I hate myself and my origins.
The fact that I have been disadvantaged just because of my skin color ,( I am good at almost everything else) just rips me apart!
And I believe this rejection from the beautiful in life is what drives us crazy. Natural selection as it were.
@ anonymous
Although I wrote this post 2 years ago, it continues to get comments. I am thankful for yours today.
As synchronicity would have it, I was just reading about Hinduism and the caste system yesterday. I can’t imagine your agony. I am reminded, however, that you are not your skin color (or your hair, or your job, or your caste). You are the beautiful spirit within.
Namaste
Caribbean trees bear new strange fruit.
Black blood brothers at the leaves,
Black blood brothers at the roots.
Black bodies drop—somebody ge shoot!
We grow youth who never know
The blacker the berry, the sweeter the fruit
Strange fruit dropping while hips keep hopping
Festival never stopping, guns keep popping
Killing one another, never having love for each other,
For their brother, sister, father, or mother
Calling them nigga, ho, punk and bitch
Self hatred is what they pitch
We lynch ourselves—no need for white man!
Beautiful scenes of these flambouyant islands;
Turquoise seas, sun-drenched sands,
The scent of frangipani, sweet and fresh
And the sudden smell of rotting flesh.
Here is the fruit for wailing parents to pluck.
For the news media to sell sadness
For the preachers to bury—but on lives the badness.
These young Black berries never live to be ripe.
I’m too angry to cry, so tired of the hype.
Who of us will stop the strange and bitter new crop?
But who are we to moan and to carry on so?
What we reap is what we sew.
Young Black berries we never taught to live
So what we get is what we give.
We watered them with Coca-cola;
More sickening than Ebola.
Think 65 grams of sugar adds life?
Just ask that dead diabetic’s wife.
Sunned them from the light of the tell-lie-vision.
Never sitting them down and listening to their visions.
Taught them to value gold chains
They’re only prettier than the slave’s chains.
Fed them with back-biting,
Then don’t expect school fighting.
They never knew themselves from birth;
Jealousy only thrives
When you don’t know your own worth.
Taught them to wine-up in jouvert,
But forgot to teach them how to pray.
Throw our money into name brands,
Instead of a few dollars to put books in their hands.
What happened to the values we used to carry on our cloth…
Adinkra and Kente; written languages carried close to heart.
Young, Black berries,
You can nea onnim no sua a, ohu; make learning a way of life.
You can sesa wo suban; begin again.
You can sankofa; go back and fetch the history your hearts are yearning.
You can umoja; unite!
You can kujichagulia; achieve self-determination!
You can imani; have faith!
You can believe with all your heart in your people, your parents, your teachers, your leaders, your children, yourselves and the righteousness and victory of our struggle!