A village once raised a child. A village once gathered the rainwaters of wisdom and baptized each child until it’s essence seeped in pores and mingled permanently with the life-blood in the veins. A village once maintained a loving spirit that surrounded and molded the lives of the young and secured the prosperity of their futures. These villages were protected by the fierceness and bravery of many men, who claimed all were within the bounds of their sacred trust. The villagers shared and laughed together. They cried in the hours of the closest kinship to midnight; cleansing blood from wounds and mending the tattered edges of battered souls. The men provided the foundation and framework for building houses, but the women were the mud and stone; the women were the stoves that heated in the darkest of winters and the oil lamps that provided the light children studied the Bible. The strong women with the tender hearts created a space of warmth and joy, of love and family. They encouraged the pursuit of excellence and instilled the bonds of brotherhood and sisterhood. They exemplified tolerance and patience while keeping the family tied together. Their faith in God was a gift they bestowed to their daughters. Their souls they sprinkled in every meal and their love locked with every braid and comb they stroked through their daughter’s hair. These courageous women willed their daughters through college and carried them through the births of the next generation. These women of these villages gave mind, body, and soul to every child of the village and asked nothing in return. Greatness and nobility lies within their sacrifice and love within their struggles.
Sometime a shadow passed over the village and brought seasons of despair. The bloodlines between Black mothers and daughters were stricken with sickness. This silent killer destroyed the passage of wisdom and heritage from the elders to the young. Young Black women turned their ears from the sage words of the elder women. Time aided the sickness and the faith of mothers took no root in the souls of their daughters. The vine was dying and the tree was withering. No longer did daughters cling to the heritage of their mothers. Black women stubbornly chose paths in direct violation of their upbringings and rushed to embrace the ways of death and loneliness. These young women had no sensitivity to the village and rejected the painted canvas of a picture family; they instead chose the mirages of independence and the insanity of a Godless existence. They mocked their mothers’ faults and gloated in their shallow achievements, only made possible because of the heritage and wisdom they so quickly ran from. They shared no connect to the minds and souls of others and foolishly tried to warm their bones from the winters of spiritual aloofness with the thin coats of materialism. They drove their children from the huts of their grandmothers and shielded their eyes from their strength.
Why have so many Black daughters run from their heritage? What will it take to repair this disconnect in the village?
Sometime a shadow passed over the village and brought seasons of despair. The bloodlines between Black mothers and daughters were stricken with sickness. This silent killer destroyed the passage of wisdom and heritage from the elders to the young. Young Black women turned their ears from the sage words of the elder women. Time aided the sickness and the faith of mothers took no root in the souls of their daughters. The vine was dying and the tree was withering. No longer did daughters cling to the heritage of their mothers. Black women stubbornly chose paths in direct violation of their upbringings and rushed to embrace the ways of death and loneliness. These young women had no sensitivity to the village and rejected the painted canvas of a picture family; they instead chose the mirages of independence and the insanity of a Godless existence. They mocked their mothers’ faults and gloated in their shallow achievements, only made possible because of the heritage and wisdom they so quickly ran from. They shared no connect to the minds and souls of others and foolishly tried to warm their bones from the winters of spiritual aloofness with the thin coats of materialism. They drove their children from the huts of their grandmothers and shielded their eyes from their strength.
Why have so many Black daughters run from their heritage? What will it take to repair this disconnect in the village?
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