Empathy

I am not a bitch. I am a human being.

I am a Black woman, but I do not represent all Black women, I represent myself.

I am not a whore. I am a human being.

I am a Black woman, but I do not represent all Black women, I represent myself.

I am not a chicken head. I am a human being.

I am a Black woman, but I do not represent all Black women, I represent myself.

I am not a skank. I am a human being.

I am a Black woman, but I do not represent all Black women, I represent myself.

I am not a ho. I am a human being.

I am a Black woman, but I do not represent all Black women, I represent myself.

I am not a nigger. I am a human being.

I am a Black woman, but I do not represent all Black women, I represent myself.

I am not your pussy. I am a human being.

I am a Black woman, but I do not represent all Black women, I represent myself.

I have feelings. I am a human being.

I am a Black woman, but I do not represent all Black women, I represent myself.

My time on this Earth is finite. I am a human being.

I am a Black woman, but I do not represent all Black women, I represent myself.

Your time on this Earth is finite. You are a human being.

I am a Black woman, but I do not represent all Black women, I represent myself.

I stand in unity with women everywhere. It has to be that way.

Hear My Call

Jill Scott
Hear My Call (Track 7)
Light of the Sun, 2011

Everything I Went Through Will Be Beautiful

I love Jill Scott’s song, ‘When I Wake Up” from her Light of the Sun album. For me, this song is a testimony that everything serves God. This includes the good, the bad, the mean, and the really, really ugly. If you are going through emotional pain because of anger, betrayal, or violation, keep moving through it. Look at it and turn it over in your head as long as you need to turn it into something useful, but do not stay there. Do not sit in anger. Do not sit in betrayal. Do not swim in violation. Learn from the experience. Own your complicity in the situations you find yourself in. There is always complicity, even when you didn’t know any better, even when you could not have done any better. Your actions led you into the situation. Forgive yourself for your complicity. Forgive the person or situation that harmed you. Move forward armed with the knowledge gained from the situation and you will be better equipped for your future.

Jill Scott
When I Wake Up (Track 13)
Light of the Sun, 2011

Three Minutes

“Where were you last night?,” his Mom asked. He quickly glanced at the clock before responding. It was 7:27am. He knew she had to leave the house at 7:30am at the latest to catch the bus to get to her first job on time and that there was no way she was going to miss her bus because if she was late, she would lose her job and the economy was too tight to be looking for another job. He had been out joy-riding in a stolen car, stolen by his friend Sam who had also been the driver. They didn’t exactly steal the car, it was more like borrowing it. When they were done joyriding, they abandoned the car on 5th street and 7th avenue, 60 blocks from where they had taken it. Then he had gone to his girlfriend’s house (at least she thinks she’s his girlfriend). They drank beers, watched movies and made love without protection. Well it wasn’t exactly making love, he only sort of liked this chick, she loved him, but it wasn’t his fault she had given it up so easily. As long as she was giving it up, he was taking it. Yeah, he had to lie to her every now and then to keep it going, but the pussy was worth it. He took the raisin bran out of the cabinet, added sugar, added milk and ignored his mother’s question. He could wait her out for three minutes, until 7:30am. He glanced at the clock again, it was 7:28am. Then she started talking, like he knew she would. “I don’t want you out in the streets with that Sam, he is going to get you in trouble. It is important that you choose your friends carefully. I don’t have money to get you out of jail… and you better not be messing with no girls without protection. I am too young to be a grandmother and you don’t have a pot to piss in.” All he heard was “blah, blah, blah.” Another glance at the clock and it was 7:29am. He and Sam had gone joy riding every weekend for months and never been arrested. He had been banging Lucy for weeks. She wasn’t pregnant. His mother did not know what she was talking about. Finally, it is 7:30am. He kisses his mother on the cheek as she heads out the door to begin her 16 hour work day. If he is at home when she returns, he’ll pretend to be asleep. He loves his mom, but he does not want to hear her mouth.

Three Minutes by Belinda Mitchell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

A Course in Miracles, 9, VII, 8, 4-5

“The truth about you is so lofty that nothing unworthy of God is worthy of you. Choose, then, what you want in these terms, and accept nothing that you would not offer to God as wholly fitting for Him.”

Innocent Driver

It was beautiful outside yesterday. The sky was the perfect color blue, the sun reflected off the sidewalk, heating the 55 degree day to an unseasonably warm 56 degrees and warming everyone’s spirits. But the wind was blowing ferociously, whistling an ominous tune that I believe, if it is possible to judge what other people hear by looking at their faces (and I think it is), was only heard by me.

On windy days like this, I fully expect a heavy object with a sharp pointy surface that has been blown loose from its proper place to hit me in the head, punching a hole through my skull, and knocking me unconscious just as I cross a busy street where I, within seconds of my collapse, will be hit and killed by a car driven by an innocent driver who has the unfortunate misfortune of looking up at the traffic light, seeing that it is yellow for caution, putting his foot on the accelerator as a result of the traffic light instruction, and looking down only then to seeing my unconscious body sprawled across the ground directly in his path.

It will be too late for him to stop and this innocent driver, through almost no fault of his own, will have hit and kill me. He will then go on to be charged with involuntarily vehicular manslaughter for his reckless deed. But I would never have wanted that for him.

If I had survived the incident, I would have told the judge to go easy on him because I know he would not have meant me any harm. He would have had his whole life ahead of him. He would have been only 23, a recent college grad, a newlywed with a seven month pregnant wife, four months into his first post-college job, having just completed the probationary period and gotten full health benefits. I would rather not have seen this promising young man, the innocent driver, go to jail at all. Unfortunately for the innocent driver, the judge would not have heard me when I made this plea because I would have already been dead.

The judge would have sentenced the innocent driver to 15 years, the maximum sentence allowed in the state of New York for vehicular manslaughter. This vehicular manslaughter charge would have saddled the innocent driver with a felony, which in addition to any damage the sentence would have done to his future job prospects, would have also prevented him from voting forever. The judge would have given him the maximum sentence because of the mitigating factors he would have had that would have included two unpaid speeding tickets (which he would have planned to pay as soon as he got his next paycheck), one moving violation ticket (also for running a red light), and a suspended license.

So far, though I often walk around the city on windy days, nothing has hit me in the head, but I worry about it constantly.

Innocent Driver by Belinda Mitchell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.

I Forgive You

I know you are a child of God.
I know you are a child of God.

I forgive you in the way
a Mother of a murdered Son
forgives the murderer who killed Her Child.

I forgive you in the way
a rape Survivor who won in court
forgives the rapist who violated Her.

I know you are a child of God.
I know you are a child of God.

I forgive you in the way
my Father would have forgiven you
if He had known what you have done to Me.

I forgive you in the way
my Brother would have forgiven you
if He had known what you have done to Me.

I know you are a child of God.
I know you are a child of God.

I forgive you in the way
I would forgive a rabid Dog in
the throws of madness for biting a Child.

I forgive you in the way
I would forgive a five year old Child
setting My house on fire to watch It burn.

I know you are a child of God.
I know you are a child of God.

I Forgive You by Belinda Mitchell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.