Women by LaShaun Beal
Beatrice Sodora Warren Jenkins. That was my maternal grandmother’s name. Married to a military man she gave birth to a family of women and one really cool gentleman. These five women and one man make up my maternal family. The sisters range from their mid-sixties to their very early forties and each one is every bit the lady my grandmother was.
These are my examples, and each of them is accomplished in her own right. There is a writer/theologian, a florist, a radiologist, a buyer for a major steel company, and a department manager for a large national bank chain. Each of these women has taught me something about life in general. So, now that I have bragged on the women in my family, what does this have to do with the price of gas in Timbuktu? Well… After my last post I thought it may be nice to drive my point home with a little less vinegar. You see, it is really easy to talk about the “do anything woman” for most it comes quite naturally to bash the “do nothing black man,” but sometimes it a little harder to step back and look at our lives in an objective way — to see how choices, rearing, and nature all play a role in our lives and particularly in the black familial unit.
From my oldest aunt I learned the lesson of marching to the beat of your own drum without hesitation or apology. The lessons she taught me (without knowing I might add) is that if you are convicted about something you owe yourself and God to stick to that conviction without apology. Our spiritual lives and our communal spirits require that we listen not only to our hearts where the lord is concerned, but follow our heads in understanding what God is saying in our lives and the lives of those we care about. Often times what we say is unpopular. Sometimes how we say it is misunderstood, but there is a love in NOT remaining quiet and sitting idly by when the Lord has given us a truth. Through her I have learned that although tact is not the enemy to honesty, sometimes shameless truths are the only things that are heard.
My mother is the second oldest sister. What I have learned from her is dignity, grace, how to be a lady and the power of the 3 day lecture. (The 3 day lecture is even better than bending projectiles around corners at disobedient children!) Some things stick not because you want them to, but because they were meant to. This is the power a mother has over her girl child. Most people know the bible verse “raise up a child.” That epitomizes the relationship I have with my mother. We are a lesson in paradox. Where I can be loud and brash, she is quiet strength. Where she is fearless I am afraid and where I am bold she is shy. As I get older the more I learn from the woman who raised, nurtured and cared for me. Momma is the epitome of grace and dignity. She has gifted me with something that I hold most precious. She taught me how to be a lady. She taught me the importance of knowing that while clothes are what the world sees first, how you carry yourself is what the world will remember always.
Aunt number three has given me a joy of laughter. She is by far the funniest person in our family. Some of the things she says could literally make you pee on yourself from laughing. Even in hard times or when things are not going the way you would prefer she has shown me that the ability to laugh through a situation is second only to the ability to pray.
Aunt number four is much like my mother with her quiet grace. When I was little she was the one who did the girlie things with me. She was the one who let me play in her hair and paint nails. As a teen she took me on “lunch dates” and treated me like a young adult rather than a child. This is the aunt that truly shares my love for reading. Every year she gives me more books than I can devour. She has that quiet grace and elegance that shows no matter what she is doing. From her I learned that you don’t have to be loud and rowdy to interesting. She has shown me through her actions that quiet time is not the enemy.
Now, last but not least there is my youngest aunt. Six year my senior and one of the coolest people I have had the privilege to know. This aunt epitomizes cool. From her I have learned the true value of friendship. She has shown me that men respect and honor relationships when you are a person in your own right and that independence does not preclude the expectations you should have for any man in your life. She has shown me that standing on your own two feet does not contradict the man in your life being a man.
You may not need him to pay your bills, you may not need him to buy your car or your house, you may be perfectly capable of living your life comfortably without him, but that does not mean that he is given the option of not being a real man. None of what I can do for myself negates how you should treat me as the woman in your life.
She has also taught me the power of loving folks from a distance. Several years back we had a discussion that culminated in the saying “All your kin ain’t your kind.” Meaning that even though we are related I am not obligated to accept or participate in the foolishness of your life. I don’t hate you. I still love you, but I am not obligated to deal with your nonsense. To this day that is the single most profound lesson I have lived by. It is the rule that allows me to still love friends and family who act foolish and I hope it is the rule that keeps them loving me in my times of stupidity.
So, you may ask, what does any of this have to do with my last post? Well, it is to show that while, as black women, we all have strengths and weaknesses if we took the time to actually learn from those around us; be it to learn from their mistakes (so we don’t make them) or learn from their triumphs (so that we can mirror them). If we took in those lessons and lived our life with a set of standards that not only defined our relationships with ourselves, our family and our men, maybe all this talk of the decline of black marriage and the fracturing of the black family would dwindle to nothingness.
I am sick and tired of hearing how bad off we are. I am tired of being a statistic. I am tired of folks saying either a) I am not worthy or b) I don’t think I am worthy. I am sick and tired of hearing that our families are the epitome of dysfunction and ruin. Most of all I am sick of hearing all of that crap from our own mouths. I am not the only black person with a family, a history, and men AND women of honor. I know I’m not. Yet, each and every time someone like Soledad O’Brien (who I had hopes for, but am now just saddened by) or Maryann Reid gets before a national audience and tells the world that as black women we are not women of strength but rather victims of our own weak minded failing I want to scream.
Maryann should be ashamed of herself for saying what she said. Did she forget she was a black woman too or was she the exception she forgot to mention? Soledad has only recently embraced her black heritage and one has to wonder if in the light of the current political climate that was not anything more than a strategic move to boost her career.
My soul screams for us to remember that slavery was not just something that happened and is now over. It shaped how we shape our families. That is not good or bad. It just is. The black family is NOT fractured. It is a unique entity that defies the Anglican mind. We are not broken. Some of us are poor, and have poverty related issues. Some of us are wealthy and the rest of us are just normal, but our families are a unique reflection of who we are as a people. Of course it’s not all picture perfect, but hell neither is our history in these United States.
Sure, more fathers should stick around and help raise the children they create. Sure, more women should wait until they are older and better prepared for children, but is this truly a reflection on us as a people, or is it a reflection on the country as a whole? White men leave their families too. Hispanic and Asian women have babies early. Yet, rather than appreciating the fact that there is a uniqueness in our culture that is due in part to our heritage here in America, and some traits that reflect our heritage as part of the African Diaspora — we allow ourselves to be saddled with the title of being the worst off. We are not, and the second we allow ourselves to remember that fact, and begin to look at ourselves first as a single family unit, and secondly as a cultural collective then maybe folks will quit using us as an example of what not to be. But we have to stop this nonsense first.
The only thing that has changed about the black family is the fact that before integration we had a communal pride and love for each other and our community. Since integration we have been so busy trying to fit in we have forgotten that we don’t need to. We have to learn how to look at ourselves and say we are ok. Once we do that then maybe we can begin to uplift those who sometimes embarrass us by taking them aside and SHOWING them something better rather than playing the media’s color game and pointing fingers like everyone else.
*Whew* this probably should have been two posts, but I’m done now.
