Black Voices - Tumblr Posts
*may contain vague Seven Days In June Spoilers*
I woke up early this morning to finish SDIJ. I also had that instant feeling that it would become something that I hold close to my heart.
Eva’s struggles with her invisible illness are ones that I also have. The rain. The pain meds that numb you. The envy of abled-bodied people and the freeness of how they live life without every step, every movement, every breath being threatened by debilitating pain.
I was talking to a friend who had read the book prior to me who is also black. And we were just basking in the blackness of the novel. From the dialogue, to the inside jokes, to the clothes, and hair. Just the existence of two black main leads being unapologetically Black.
One of my fav things that we talked about was that this wasn’t a book about black pain. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of pain within those pages. BUT the entire arcs of these characters is learning how to live with and embrace their joy along with their pain. That’s what makes this so important to me.
Too often black media is depictions of slavery, addiction, gang violence, etc. Which have their own space. But it’s past time for black media to be filled with joy. We’re not just a people filled sadness and tragedy. We have so much love to share, and embrace.
It’s time we make room for our joy along with our pain. Give them both the attention they deserve without letting one outshine the other. Because without the other, they have no meaning.
just started reading "seven days in june" and im only a few pages in and i can already tell this book will mean a lot to me
i mean we have a Black female lead with a chronic illness and this quote just hit me:
"And her disability was invisible - she wasn't missing a limb or in a full-body cast. Her level of suffering seemed impossible for others to fathom." like COME ON
“Your oppression will not save you.” Best-selling author Ta-Nehisi Coates sits down with Jon Stewart to talk about his latest book, “The Message,” and reconciling past and present vestiges of oppression. They discuss his visits to Senegal, South Carolina, and The West Bank, how past atrocities like slavery and the holocaust can create a zero-sum game of control, the need for safety and statehood despite morally problematic systems, his exposure to Palestinian stories that have been hidden in American media, understanding the physical traumas of the Black community, and the purpose in writing to shape the world around us.
Modern Colonization
You turn our castles into Capitalistic towers
You turn our language into cheap imitations
You turn our communities into forgotten laments
You turn our future into phantasmal dreams
This is the game you have played for generations upon generations
Destroying lands and desecrating cultures all in the name of your conquest of vanity
You oppressor; you colonizer
How long will you stand in envy
Of our heritage
Of our legacy
Of our culture
Of our skin color
Of our existence?
Never in your anger and your spite shall you ever obtain even a fraction of the beauty Mother Nature has gifted upon us
Though you may burn at your self-appointed stake, you shall never possess the eyes of a victim
We are the future you fear
We are th rebels you fail to silence
We are the Capital you shall never obtain.
Nature's Legacy
To be melanated is to be brown
Brown like the most fertile of soil
Brown like the tallest of mountains
Melanin is a tresure
A treasure bestowed upon the chosen
A bronze legacy worth more than any gold
Mother Nature, she made us in her beauty
Beauty that could never be replicated
Beauty that leaves the entire world in awe
Use your voice poem
Never dull the edge of your voice for deafened ears
Instead, sharpen it to pierce through any and all silence
Let there be no quarter for those who try to stifle your words
Because your voice is so much more than a caged bird