Fourth Wave Revolution – Feminism and Religion

Today, once again, I got to touch the earth!

While planting and constructing my indoor container garden, I thought about how my ancestors put seeds into their children’s hair so that in case they were taken away to live and die in chains, they would at least be able to sustain themselves with a piece of the motherland. Rice, okra, yams, watermelon, and so MANY more crops that would go on to make white slaveholding Americans so rich (passing their wealth to their descendants and zero reparations for the descendants of enslaved Africans), that they were willing to fight a war to sustain their evil practices of owning human beings as chattel (Check out High on the Hog Netflix documentary which was adapted from a book by Dr. Jessica B. Harris). Enslaved Africans brought these foods to the new world, a direct result of slavery.

As I wash my daughter’s hair (which for Black women and girls is a PROCESS!!), as I moisturize her hair, and as I braid my hair, I am thankful that no one has a right to my child and that I do not need to fear her enslavement. Instead, I manifest her revolutionary future to carry the torch of our ancestors. A Torch and a commitment to elevate our community and move the community forward. I leave it up to her to choose how she will carry that torch forward!

Read Part 1 here.

One of the 18 characteristics of Africana Womanism is being a self-definer. This piece is a sliver of my process to do and be exactly that.

I am striving to be a whole Black woman. I have an awareness that I am a whole person and transcend the role that Amerikkkan* society has given black women. Wholeness is justice and justice/liberation is wholeness. We are unaware of the full extent that racism has impacted Black women psychologically and emotionally. I’m saying racism constricts us in exhausting ways- the results have been wearing on our mental and sexual health, senses, nerves, physical health for years. And it still is.