STYLE HAS
A PROFOUND MEANING
Style has a profound meaning to Black Americans. If we can’t drive, we will invent walks and the world will envy the dexterity of our feet. If we can’t have ham, we will boil chitterlings; if we are given rotten peaches, we will make cobblers; if given scraps, we will make quilts; take away our drums, and we will clap our hands. We prove the human spirit will prevail. We will take what we have to make what we need. We need confidence in our knowledge of who we are.
—Nikki Gionvanni
File this under facts on facts.
This makes me think of a beautiful post that I mentioned in one of my Read This Week features; a post by @HarrietThugman about Black people of other cultural backgrounds who diminish Black American culture, and shouldn’t….for it is so rich.
My cultural heritage involves a mixture of my love for some things specific to Jamaican culture (because of my background, being raised in a Jamaican family by Jamaican parents, but being raised in America and actually born in America) and some things specific to being an American Black (I love how Nikki says Black is the NOUN and American is the adjective), and some things that seems to connect Black people despite where in the diaspora we are.
(via gradientlair)