I am Weary
We have been at war for ages. So, I pledged to be different than those before me. I was ready for change and extended an invitation to dine with us. I offered you a seat at our table. you accepted. I prepared the table for a feast. I fetched wine from different continents. Enough wine for this lifetime and the next. We were set out to exchange the intricate delicacies of our cultures. With no fear of our cups running dry. Instead, you looked down on us. You took our gifts and threatened to enslave us. There is no glory in what you stole from us. The real glory is in us. It was at our table, it bounced off the walls whenever we opened our mouths to speak. Yes, I am weary from war however, this war cannot come to an end until the foul treatment of my people has been acknowledged and corrected for good.

In 2017, I watched Solange turn the Guggenheim museum into a temple for black women. She provided us with a visual and physical extension of her music. A little while after her performance she went on to say that, “Inclusion is not enough, and allowance is not enough”. She also went on to say, “We belong here, we built this shit”. Often times we as a collective want to celebrate these events/victories wholeheartedly, as we should. But we also know that we need to demand access to these spaces. So that a performance of that magnitude can take place more frequently than once a decade. My cousins look like the women that filled up the Guggenheim. They walk and talk like them. My auntie’s and nieces can move just like those women did. They think like them. But most importantly they all have something to say. They all have something they bring to the table that makes our souls abundantly richer.

I am weary.