Working Together

Hey it’s me again, Glynnyale ‘the repurposed teacher’, and it’s time to talk TEAM! So you’ve just been appointed captain and now have to responsibility to build your life team. WHO do you align yourself with? What people become your most valuable players?

I will share with you my line up. I am working with … you guessed it, US. Yes, black across borders. I believe it is time to cross oceans and have the family reunion we have been longing for. As an African American we have been lied to over and over and over again and I want to say we mostly have had the woo pulled over our eyes in regard to black excellence ALL AROUND THE WORLD. Ok so I just took a trip to Paris, France and also stepped into London for a short visit and WOW black was and is in the building. It was a beautiful surprise how much Black culture surrounded me and I couldn’t help thinking I wanted to tie myself to everything all the essence that my American educational career left out. Really I feel silly saying this because of course names like James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Chester Himes, Beauford Delaney, even Duke Ellington are authors and artist of a time way before mine who poured colored culture on the streets of Paris like rain.  Did you know who can get a tour of black Paris yes check it out Monique Y. Wells (link) founder of Entrée to Black Paris offers tours? Ok so really this is just one example of my point about prominent Black culture outside of America and yes this is a duh moment yet again. When you really think about it of course Black is everywhere and doing fabulous but my main concern is why we are not working together.

Ok case in point WHY IS ANY BLACK AMERICAN FEELING ANY KIND OF WAY ABOUT CYNTHIA ERIVO PLAYING HARRIET TUBMAN?  Can we celebrate this phenomenal BLACK women (in Maya Angelo voice) singing and bringing this character to us in a way we can touch. We should be proud, not well she is British black and that’s different so we American black semi proud until some white person (from anywhere white) start acknowledging her and then that’s when we might step up and claim her again. ALL of that is UGLY and wrong and honestly we AMERICAN black have been trained along with too many other blacks to separate ourselves from one another be it a pigment problem and now a geography grievance. Let us all work together stand black from anywhere and everywhere tall together. If we all stood in a line up (images of black people from all around the world in a line up) Jamaica, Brazil, London, Paris, America, Belize, Japan, Peru, Mexico, Hattie,  Germany, Denmark, Russia, Africa or where ever, you would not be able to call out with certainty their place of residence. We are beautiful and ugly, smart and stupid, rich and poor all over this entire planet and we need one another. We should feel safe and welcomed by one another, we should not doubt if we made the team.

Lets take some ques from Lil Jon, Ludacris, Akon, Wyclif and the iconic Oprah it is time to work together, claim each other, love our sisters and brothers, find our cousins because we are all over this planet and we are stronger together. I am working on getting my citizenship in Kenya as you read!

Black Panther was one of my favorite movies of 2018 shoot it’s in the tops of all time – side not I cannot wait for part 2 OMG and I’m hoping all them heroes who helped destroy WAKANDA are also on clean up duty man Infinity Wars was soooooo very hard for me to watch – sorry back to the topic at hand…so Black Panther was far more than just a superhero marvel movie it was a lesson for black culture. Killmonger (African American) vs. T’Challa (African) we should not have to choose! These two perspectives need to find peace and understanding with one another, they need to forgive one another and embrace each other’s story. The idea that Killmonger has to decide between death and bondage and T’Challa is challenged with being a “good” king or a “good’ man is this false dilemma that colonizers have chained black diversity to. This troublesome ideology that has black people in a “who is the blackest” contest with only true of false as options. The world is so much bigger it is time for black culture to move into the grey this white and black only has pinned too many good man who are also kings to the wall and push to many hurting men to death. Our fathers sins are a part of our stories yes but they are not our punishment if we are willing to open up and let healing in and the conversation begin. Y’all know the counselor in me wants to get to the mental health aspect of this talk but don’t worry you can find that in a different blog.

So how do we work together?

1. Welcome Black from wherever in Invite black difference
2. Support black growth
3. Learn more about black outside of yourself
4. Find the grey in your answer
5. Communicate lets talk
6. Find you in them
7. Let your experience teach you not just your colonizer
8. Be willing to get to know 
9. Research black all over the world
10. Invite a new black experience, moment, person, business into your life