From the Vault: Black Artist, Music & Words

MUSIC

Thunderbird Artis Blackbird https://youtu.be/cq54QS22qBk

Jennifer Hudson A Change is Gonna Come https://youtu.be/M7uanvzKzKw

Keb Mo I’m Amazing https://youtu.be/TgzJ3RhxByE

The Staple Singers I’ll Take You There https://youtu.be/uY3vgBzgYn4

READING: The Body is Not an Apology

Sonya Renee Taylor is an award-winning Performance Poet, activist, and transformational leader with a global reach. She is a former National and International poetry slam champion and the author of two books. Her words and ideas have enlightened and inspired organizations, audiences, and individuals from board rooms to prisons, universities to homeless shelters, elementary schools to some of the biggest stages in the world. SOURCE: https://www.sonyareneetaylor.com/

This excerpt is taken from The Body is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love.

A year or so ago, a woman in one of my workshops shared that as a darker-skinned Black Ballerina, she felt , from early in her training, as if something were holding her back. Eventually she concluded that it was the color of her skin. What might make this young woman, feel as if her Blackness was a disadvantage in her pursuits as a classical dancer? Consider this hypothesis: when we don’t see ourselves reflected in the world around us, we make judgements about that absence. Invisibility is a statement. It says something about the world and our place in it. A 2014 MTV study done in collaboration with the David Binder Research group found that among Millennials, 73 percent of respondents believed that never considering race would improve society. Unfortunately, despite our dreams of a utopic, color-blind planet, this thinking only functions to reinforce body shame. How many times have we heard or said the following statement: I don’t see color? Although well-intentioned, not seeing color is ultimately a reflection of our personal challenges around navigating difference.

We may be trying to convey how we don’t judge people based on racial identity, but “color blindless” is an act of erasure. Not only does it make invisible all the experiences a person has had that were shaped by their racial identity or color; it implies that to truly respect another human being, we must obscure their areas of difference. Remember that we live in a world of default bodies, the bodied we imagine when we close our eyes. The default body becomes the template for the normal body. The only reason we would need to erase someone’s difference is because we still equate difference with danger or undesirability.

When we say we don’t see color, what we are truly saying is, “I don’t want to see the things about you that are different because society has told me they are dangerous or undesirable.” Ignoring difference does not change society; nor does it change the experience non-normative bodies must navigate to survive. Rendering difference invisible validates the notion that there are parts of us that should be hidden, ignored, or minimized, leaving in place the unspoken idea that difference is the problem – and not our approach to dealing with difference. Proposing that humans are all the same leaves the idea of the default body uninterrogated in our subconscious and firmly in place in our world; forcing all other bodies to confirm or be rendered invisible.

POETRY TRIO

Incident by Countee Cullen

Once riding in old Baltimore, Heart-filled, head-filled with glee, I saw a Baltimorean Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small, And he was no whit bigger, And so I smiled, but he poked out His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."

I saw the whole of Baltimore From May until December; Of all the things that happened there That's all that I remember.

I remember reading this for the first time in High School. The cadence and rhyming words drew me in. Then the word ‘Nigger’ slapped me hard. Words are so powerful. They can instantly do an enormous amount of damage and harm. I did not realize until several years later, that the poem also taught me something about the force of poetry: a poem does not require fancy prose to be compelling. Rev. CTC

Baltimoreans who know the poetry of African American poet Countee Cullen wince when reading this one. The poem paints an ugly--albeit accurate--picture of Charm City in the early part of the 20th Century. We see the city that closed an amusement park rather than integrate it, the city that made it difficult for Barbara Mikulski to have lunch with her African American coworkers and where star athletes had difficulty finding a place to live. SOURCE: The Baltimore Literary Heritage Project http://baltimoreauthors.ubalt.edu/writers/counteecullen.htm

Still I Rise by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries? Does my haughtiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard ’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.

An acclaimed American poet, storyteller, activist, and autobiographer, Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri. Angelou had a broad career as a singer, dancer, actress, composer, and Hollywood’s first female black director, but became most famous as a writer, editor, essayist, playwright, and poet. As a civil rights activist, Angelou worked for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. She was also an educator and served as the Reynolds professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University.

By 1975, wrote Carol E. Neubauer in Southern Women Writers: The New Generation, Angelou was recognized “as a spokesperson for… all people who are committed to raising the moral standards of living in the United States.” She served on two presidential committees, for Gerald Ford in 1975 and for Jimmy Carter in 1977. In 2000, Angelou was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Bill Clinton. In 2010, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the U.S., by President Barack Obama. Angelou was awarded over 50 honorary degrees before her death. SOURCE: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/maya-angelou

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The Miracle of Mourning by Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman

I thought I’d awaken to a world in mourning. Heavy clouds crowding, a society storming. But there’s something different on this golden morning. Something magical in the sunlight, wide and warming.

I see a dad with a stroller taking a jog. Across the street, a bright-eyed girl chases her dog. A grandma on a porch fingers her rosaries. She grins as her young neighbor brings her groceries.

While we might feel small, separate, and all alone, Our people have never been more closely tethered. The question isn’t if we will weather this unknown, But how we will weather this unknown together.

So on this meaningful morn, we mourn and we mend. Like light, we can’t be broken, even when we bend.

As one, we will defeat both despair and disease. We stand with healthcare heroes and all employees; With families, libraries, schools, waiters, artists; Businesses, restaurants, and hospitals hit hardest.

We ignite not in the light, but in lack thereof, For it is in loss that we truly learn to love. In this chaos, we will discover clarity. In suffering, we must find solidarity.

For it’s our grief that gives us our gratitude, Shows us how to find hope, if we ever lose it. So ensure that this ache wasn’t endured in vain: Do not ignore the pain. Give it purpose. Use it.

Read children’s books, dance alone to DJ music. Know that this distance will make our hearts grow fonder. From a wave of woes our world will emerge stronger.

We’ll observe how the burdens braved by humankind Are also the moments that make us humans kind; Let every dawn find us courageous, brought closer; Heeding the light before the fight is over. When this ends, we’ll smile sweetly, finally seeing In testing times, we became the best of beings.

What Miracle Are YOU Participating In This Wonderful Morning?

At 20-years-old, Harvard junior Amanda Gorman is called "the next great figure of poetry in the U.S." In 2017 she made history by becoming the first ever Youth Poet Laureate of the United States of America. In this role she has spoken at the Library of Congress, the United Nations x Mashable Social Good Summit, WE Day, and venues across the country. As a native from Los Angeles, prior to her national position she served as the inaugural Youth Poet Laureate of L.A. and later the West.

“I feel consistently like I’m wearing the history of my people and my heritage and being a descendant of slaves. Not in a shadowy way, but like a second skin,” A. Gorman

“Young people need to ask themselves, ‘I post, and what now?’ There is a lot of activism that begins and then ends on your Instagram home screen. I loved all the solidarity with people changing their profile picture to blue for Sudan, but at the same time, I still wondered what is next. Vote. You don’t have to vote for the party I stand for, you don’t even have to vote for the candidate that I personally support. The only thing I really care about is that young people get out there and vote. We have too much at stake.” A. Gorman SOURCE: http://www.amandascgorman.com/about.html