Living Through Black History

With election day right around the corner, and the feeling of anxiousness building up in the pit of my stomach, I figured I'd let my 1st blog be in relation. Now, I know politics are a sticky, icky, topic and I do not plan to even get into my politic beliefs, thoughts, values, etc. But I wanted to stress the fact of US living through a moment in Black History.

Barak Obama is the first African American nominated as the Democratic Presidential Nominee. We’ve had several African American candidates over the years but none ever officially nominated. Now, even IF (a BIG and STRONG IF) Obama does not become president, just the mere fact that in our lifetime, we were blessed to witness Black History.

Now, a little background… I am half Black and half Filipino. And in my early childhood I had mostly white friend girls living in Belleville, IL. I had some black friend girls also but mainly hung out with my white friends. Stayed over their house, went to malls, arcades, dances with them. When I turned 12, me, my brother and my sister moved with our grandma to South Hill, Va. (a country town about 3hours from Hampton, Va...) And hooonnnnneeeeyyyy, I was not prepared for us black folks being the majority but I LIKE IT. This was the beginning of the love that I’ve grown for US, for MY PEOPLE. I don’t know what it was about being surrounded by the same skin color every day and every minute of your life but it definitely was a different feeling than I was accustomed to. Being a military brat in the 80’s & 90’s, and continuously moving from one Air Force Base to another, I was used to being in a melting pot until that point; a melting pot of majority white.


Fast forward to High School… studying American History….Slavery… Civil War… Civil Rights Movement...

Now, I don’t know about ya’ll but I’ve never been more proud of being an African American, a Nubian, a Negro, a black person, than in THAT moment of learning of our history, our struggles, our triumphs. Just the simple fact of what our ancestors endured is more than enough for me to WANT to walk with my head held high in all things I do…to HAVE INTEGRITY.. to watch how I present myself not only in front of MY people but other races... for my CHARACTER to be HONORABLE and FORTHRIGHT.. I feel we have BIG shoes to fill and a REPUTATION to uphold... a reputation of being DRIVEN, HARD WORKING, COURAGEOUS & TENACIOUS. But more and more “WE” are further from these virtues and dammit it pisses me off!!

We DO need CHANGE! We as a country but most of all WE as a people. Black People! And maybe, just maybe Obama becoming THE 1ST AFRICAN AMERICAN PRESIDENT will change how WE act, live, interact as a Black person in American. Slavery was so far out of our lifetime that I believe it’s hard for our generation to even grasp the concept of it and the struggle of it. You know I’m no history buff and my “extracurricular activity” affects my memory..:0) but I do remember this phrase being very popular, “Remember the Alamo.” Now, I’m sure I can dig in my archives to TRY and remember what the whole Alamo thing was about but that’s not my point. My point is that we should have been screaming all along, “REMEMBER THE STRUGGLE” or “REMEMBER THE MOVEMENT.” I dare not use “remember slavery” because we should want to remember what brought us out of it.

It’s crunch time folks! We are presently living in BLACK HISTORY and GOD WILLING, we will continue to for the next 4 years +. I love you MY PEOPLE. Let’s start BEING the KINGS & QUEENS GOD intended us to be and BE the KINGS & QUEENS our ancestors were. We just got to LOVE ourselves first!

Go VOTE!!

"Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails" (Proverbs 19:21)