John,
Here's to a reclamation in the name of #BreonnaTaylor.
This upcoming weekend, October 2nd-4th, Black Lives Matter invites Black women to reclaim our Divinity in the name of Breonna Taylor.
Black women: We deserve this and more.
In Breonna's name, in Nina's name, in Sandra's name… we've felt pain. We've felt hopelessness. And now, it's time we feel love. It's time we feel solidarity and connectivity with our ancestors, with our communities, and with each other.
For now, let's honor Breonna Taylor and all the Black women our lives by changing our profile pictures to #BlackWomenAreDivine, just click and save the image. A Womxn version is available here.
And please read BLM LA's Melina Abdullah's statement on
A Reclamation in the Name of #BreonnaTaylor and #BlackWomenAreDivine below.
Black Women Are Divine:
A Reclamation in the Name of #BreonnaTaylor
A sadness has overtaken so many of us...Black women...cis, trans, gender non-conforming...an echoing of Zora Neale Hurston's words, “Black women are da mules of the world.” The lowliest of beasts. Bred for labor. Driven to work. To bear loads. To bring profit for others. Sustained as property. Unnurtured as living beings. No children to which we have a right. Whipped into a constant state of submission. Bellows muffled. Ignored. Unseen. Uncared for. Unthought of.
Because to a world dominated by White-supremacy, heterosexism, transphobia and capitalism, Breonna was a mule, they ignored the sunshine of her smile, the shimmer of her satiny brown skin, the perfect swoop of her hair, the pride that overflowed from the fullness of her chest, the roundness of her hips that awaited the birth of her yet-to-be-born children. To a White man's world, Breonna was a mule. To a White man's world, Black women are mules.
But, our backs were not meant to carry the weight of the loads piled upon them. Labor, and abuse, and efforts to dehumanize, do not turn Black women into mules. This is an identity that oppressors attempts to impose. This is not the truth of who we be.
The truth is that we hold within us the magic of our grandmothers' hands...toughened, beautiful, leathery, brown with cracks that...if you examine closely...map the road back to generations past….to grandmothers before. The truth is that rhythm, and life, and mysticism inhabits the sway of our hips to songs that live in our own heartbeats. The turn is that the whispers that wake us in the predawn hours, that echo from the rain and the wind, are the voices of our foremothers whirling, encircling, protecting us from harm, and ushering us into our purpose. The truth is that the draw we feel to other Black women, hidden within gazes met, is the power to transform the world.
Black women are not mules. Black women are Divine.
Over the next weekend, October 2-4, 2020, Black Lives Matter invites Black women ( cis, trans and non binary) to reclaim our Divinity in the name of #BreonnaTaylor. We are calling on Black women to stand in joy, solidarity, and power to thrust the loads from our backs, to connect with our Sisters, our children, our families, our communities, our Ancestors, and each other. To dance. To eat. To use our bodies for our own pleasure. To nurture our Souls. To say Breonna's name...and Wakiesha's...and Nina's…and Sandra's...and Kisha's...and Yuvette's...and Nia's….and Michelle's….and Shaylene's...and Ms. Margaret's...and Rekia's....and, and, and….
We call on people who are not Black women to express their appreciation and adulation, to gift Black women with flowers, with song, with prayer, with healthy and delicious food, with time, with art, with clean environments, with notes and expressions of love. We call on people who are not Black women to interrogate their own roles in attempting to make Black women into mules and to do better. We call on people who are not Black women to disrupt the White-supremacist-heteropatriarchal-capitalism that stole Breonna's life, then condoned it.
What we seek to do next weekend is to begin and continue to remake the world.
We encourage folks to join a local event and if there is nothing scheduled near you, build an event, gift a loved one, friend, neighbor, or co-worker.
Let's honor Breonna, the Black women stolen by state-violence, our own mothers, grandmothers, sisters, and each other by transforming the world into one where Black women are not made into mules, but revered for our Divinity. Black women are Divine.
Melina Abdullah, Black Lives Matter Los Angeles
