B-Girls, Incorporated
Our youth can be our fate or our future. If young people embrace Black culture, ground themselves in it, and feel compelled to continue the legacy, then they are our future. But if they turn their backs on their Blackness, if they have contempt for their fathers and mothers, if they do nothing but engage in self-congratulatory narratives and music about themselves and imagine that they are actually a threat to this society or that they have any future in it simply by talking negative, then they are not our future; they are our fate. - Maulana Karenga, Interview in The Source
“Ego Tripping”
I was born in the congo
I walked to the fertile crescent and built
the sphinx
I designed a pyramid so tough that a star
that only glows every one hundred years falls
into the center giving divine perfect light
I am bad
I sat on the throne
drinking nectar with allah
I got hot and sent an ice age to europe
to cool my thirst
My oldest daughter is nefertiti
the tears from my birth pains
created the nile
I am a beautiful woman
I gazed on the forest and burned
out the sahara desert
with a packet of goat’s meat
and a change of clothes
I crossed it in two hours
I am a gazelle so swift
so swift you can’t catch me
For a birthday present when he was three
I gave my son hannibal an elephant
He gave me rome for mother’s day
My strength flows ever on
My son noah built new/ark and
I stood proudly at the helm
as we sailed on a soft summer day
I turned myself into myself and was
jesus
men intone my loving name
All praises All praises
I am the one who would save
I sowed diamonds in my back yard
My bowels deliver uranium
the filings from my fingernails are
semi-precious jewels
On a trip north
I caught a cold and blew
My nose giving oil to the arab world
I am so hip even my errors are correct
I sailed west to reach east and had to round off
the earth as I went
The hair from my head thinned and gold was laid
across three continents
I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal
I cannot be comprehended except by my permission
I mean…I…can fly
like a bird in the sky…
-Nikki Giovanni
GorGeous Speakss: It Really Makes Me Sad When iSee Guys Say ‘iDon’t Date Black Girls’ Or...
It Really Makes Me Sad When iSee Guys Say ‘iDon’t Date Black Girls’ Or ‘iDon’t Like Black Girls.’ Even Though I’m Not Fully Black Myself iStill Have Members In My Family That Are . iThink It’s So Childish That You Wouldn’t Date A Girl Because Of Her Skin Color . And It’s Really Sad When You See…
Random SBG: Mental Monday - Making It Work
When I look back at my experiences with depression, I’d say that I spent the majority of my life “battling” it. Back then, treating it like a bully that I had to get in the ring and defeat was the analogy that worked best for me. I was an overachiever, bred to be a winner. The image of standing…
