i’m a firm believer that just because you didn’t go through what i been through don’t mean you ain’t “go through”. dig? everyones struggle is valid. give thanks to each other and how we get each other through. we got mad gifts and are gifts to each other, teaching each other all of the time.
I wasted enough time trying to be better than myself, like being better hurt less. I felt numb. I struggled to fit in-to survive-to cope-to live. My mind played tricks on me like fear, dis-empowered my thoughts, made me sick, had me convinced I would die there. I rescued my love that was dormant, petrified in a fetal position at the base of my spine. I coaxed the fragments that didn’t look pretty. My love snuggled to my bones. She even welcomed what was not fully recovered, nor healed, the scars and injuries warmed my soul without shame. I learned to just BE. Warm. Organic. Honest. Silly. Me. Now I just BE-livin’. Believing. Moving about the planet carefree. I don’t care if I fit in. Ha! smile emoticon heart emoticon #uglybeautiful #loveonyouboo
-Gracie Berry
I can appreciate honesty, but honesty don’t always mean right. My loved one posted a status about their detest of natural hair and how they won’t date a woman whose natural and furthermore when they see it they want to relax it. As I mentioned to them, when you see a woman with natural hair now a days believe me it’s one of the deepest acts of self love out here, so while you hate it, it does no good to hate on the love she got going on for herself. Women of color have suffered self hate of their own skin far too long and now we are falling in love with ourselves all over again simply by wearing our hair the way it was gifted to us at birth. This is our revolution, our birth right! I loooooove my nappy and all things nappy. heart emoticon #naps #loveyourhair #naturalisbeautiful
-Gracie Berry
A gift for Melissa Warren! Told you I saw art in your photo lol! Hope you like it! And happy New Year. #isawabikini #girlrillavintagebeforetheboat
Happy birthday mama Hurston! Your words are the best I’ve read all day. ❤
“Prayer seems to me a cry of weakness, and an attempt to avoid, by trickery, the rules of the game as laid down. I do not choose to admit weakness. I accept the challenge of responsibility. Life, as it is, does not frighten me, since I have made my peace with the universe as I find it, and bow to its laws. The ever-sleepless sea in its bed, crying out “how long?” to Time; million-formed and never motionless flame; the contemplation of these two aspects alone, affords me sufficient food for ten spans of my expected lifetime. It seems to me that organized creeds are collections of words around a wish. I feel no need for such. However, I would not, by word or deed, attempt to deprive another of the consolation it affords. It is simply not for me. Somebody else may have my rapturous glance at the archangels. The springing of the yellow line of morning out of the misty deep of dawn, is glory enough for me. I know that nothing is destructible; things merely change forms. When the consciousness we know as life ceases, I know that I shall still be part and parcel of the world. I was a part before the sun rolled into shape and burst forth in the glory of change. I was, when the earth was hurled out from its fiery rim. I shall return with the earth to Father Sun, and still exist in substance when the sun has lost its fire, and disintegrated into infinity to perhaps become a part of the whirling rubble of space. Why fear? The stuff of my being is matter, ever changing, ever moving, but never lost; so what need of denominations and creeds to deny myself the comfort of all my fellow men? The wide belt of the universe has no need for finger-rings. I am one with the infinite and need no other assurance.”
-Zora Neale Hurston 1942 autobiography Dust Tracks on a Road.
“Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to ‘jump at the sun.’ We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.”
Zora Neale Hurston circa 1928
For more information-https://www.facebook.com/events/727611237316333/?pnref=story
https://www.facebook.com/events/727611237316333/?pnref=story
For more information-https://www.facebook.com/events/780919131945248/?pnref=story
A former love manages to ignore every correspondence you initiated. You think, what a fucking asshole! Suddenly you remember how they always avoided difficult things to cope and that somehow you managed to escape that fine detail. A broken heart makes reality hard to accept, but acceptance concludes that you owe yourself big time. The need to care for yourself becomes apparent. -Gracie Berry
#lifewontalwaysbelikethis #Goinward #Godeep #nurtureyourlove.
If the majority of the women accusing Bill Cosby were of color the allegations would still be disturbing, trauma still there, the shame too. Bill Cosby is like one of the few blacks that ever “made it” and has “made it almost perfectly, for so long with no flaws, no deceptions”. He’s earned respect internationally as an icon that is very powerful (the golden child). It’s sad because I feel like people of color, in my own community would rather him remain untarnished, untouchable, or to believe a lie just to hold on to some level of respect that is only theres by association, instead of accepting that he raped 15 women. Or this innocent until proven guilty shit. So basically if he’s found guilty all of those that supported him will simultaneously turn their backs?
Rape happens to babies, children, teenagers, adults, and elders. Imagine telling your 8-year old baby girl that she should never talk about granddaddy raping her because it would ruin the family name? Or questioning why she let grandaddy do that to her in the first place and that she must be “fresh” because it happened? And as she reaches her 40th birthday, father urges her to always stay silent because grandaddy is such a respected man, a god fearing man, family man in his community and her telling on him would kill his pride, and ruin him for life, and the family too while all along she has no pride from dying inside when it happened, scarred human flesh that can’t be intimate without fear. We would rather protect what has made us respected and dignified in the eyes of others instead of facing painful truths. My family was always been good at holding secrets, secrets that were painful and shameful and hurtful. We kept them cause we were raised that it was nobodies business. I’ve dedicated my life to exposing my families secrets. Those secrets won’t hold me hostage anymore. My life is too beautiful not to be free. Stop victim blaming. Bill’s got too many accusations and so little time. -Gracie Berry
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