Dear Black Woman:
If we could grab a handful of stars from the pocket of the universe, put them in the cellophane light from the moon, and give it to you as a present, we would.
If we could, we would hunt and stalk down time itself, kill it, and give it to you as a ransom, just so that we could have your attention for a moment.
If we could, we would recite the ground you walked on from memory, and whisper spells of your magic in God’s ear so that God could hear how right God was in creating you.
If we could, we would move heaven and earth. For you.
Because every place you have ever been has been blessed. And divine. When God created the universe, God used you as the canvas on which the universe was crafted and designed.
In the diaspora, you stretched your arms around us, to comfort us, connect us, and hold us together.
In the antebellum, you took anger, oppression and violence, and fashioned it into music, that became the walk-in music for God’s after-parties.
You have sat in, marched on, led through, and walked over, for us. You are both bothered and unbothered simultaneously, simultaneously vacillating between being the brightest light in the room, and the most hated.
You hate injustice, you’re kind to children and animals, and you have a heart for those who have been left on the margins. There is no place our society is going, you haven’t already been. You have been every saying, every doing, every trend that’s worth trending, but you have never been a fad. You make people into families and causes into communities.
You are the color purple. You are grapes continually transforming into wine, you are ripe unpeeled mangos, you are the ice cream truck at sunset in July, you are the three little birds Bob Marley sang about, and the woman mumble rappers never sing about.
You are.
So when they come for you. When they come for your intelligence, when they come for your qualifications, when they come for your resilience and brilliance and fortitude; when they come for you as judges, and leaders, and doctors, and mothers, and musicians, and women, and everything that you are, we know that it illustrates how uncomfortable they are around everything you are.
If we had it, we would give you the world in support. But, all we have are our words and actions. We support you, we see you, and we got you covered.
