Love For All

I've been getting anonymous emails in response to my post Natural Hair Sista, Oh Please and not everyone agrees with my views and that is o.k.Dr. Cornwell is responsible for changing peoples view of natural hair, and this is a great thing. My point is that it doesn't stop there IF your goal is to be a totally natural African-American sista in touch with her heritage etc.. I quess I am beyond the brow beating and the "shame on you attitude" that we natural sistas sling around. We wear our hair as a badge of honor and that is a good thing but physiologically all hair is the same: its dead!

I can certainly understand the aggressive stance "we" take it our campaign for acceptance-I have lived my whole life this way. As a dark skinned, I grew up being called black and ugly, tar baby, dark Vader, do-do stain, charcoal and more BY MY OWN PEOPLE! Do you know what kind of pain that is when you are rejected by people that are supposed to love you, people that look just like you but for some reason, they see themselves as separate from you.

That ladies, can change a persons DNA too! You carry that scar in your soul long after it heals and sometimes people will come into your life and try to dig open that scar: they try to make a fresh wound but some of us have managed to put up a good strong wall to block it out. I am as pro black as they come, I let home at 17 and became Muslim. I thought that all white people were devils and light skinned blacks were mutts. It made me feel validated, it made me feel good about myself at that time. The more i live the more I see that the outer shell is just that, a shell!

When I had my last daughter, I had a c-section and shortly after the operation I started hemorrhaging. Blood clots the size of grapefruits were gushing out from between my legs. I was dying. The nurses rushed in and when they lifted the covers and saw all the blood they just looked at each other like they were afraid to touch me. They called the Doctor on staff that night and she gave orders from the foot of my bed not once putting down her clip board to get a closer look at me. I guess she didn't want to get dirty either.

The only nurse that came close and held me was nurse Samatha( a white woman), She cradled me in her arms and looked me straight in the eyes and said,"your going to be o.k. we'll take care of you." I needed to hear those words because i knew from the look on every ones face that I was in serious trouble, but of all of them Samatha held me, wiped my face and told me to hold on. It didn't matter to me what she looked like, what her religion was, if she liked her steak medium rare; none of that mattered. She became my mother at that moment. She kept me calm while the nurse had her fist inside my uterus to get the rest of the blood clots out.
I say all this because at the core of each and every one of us, we want to be loved and validated. Our own brothers and sistahs that have come to America from the shores of Africa will let you and I know that we're different. I've heard what they say too. They (Africans) see us as different. It doesn't matter how nappy your hair is or how much kente clothe you wear; you and I will always be different. We all have to care about each other that's it!

If you were drowning would you care who pulled you out of the water? Would you look to see if their hair was permed or straight, would you care if they were white or black, spoke English or creole, republican or Democrat, gay or straight, poor or rich? Think about that before you impose your rules on any