Internalized Racism Often Wears Prada

What does it mean to be free? If one were to describe the attributes of liberty, what would they say?

The birth of Juneteenth, June 19, 1865, when federal troops descended upon Galveston, Texas to free the United States’ remaining enslaved people. According to the Library of Congress, a document was read on one of the largest plantations. “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, ‘all slaves are free’ …This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves …the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor…”

I try to reimagine these moments from the perspective of someone living through it. As a product of the 20th Century, living through a new millennium, I get served humble pie every time in this effort to place myself there. I can only hold on to first-hand accounts that were passed down to elders I grew up around who had grandparents that had been born enslaved. The home church I grew up in was founded by freed slaves, is considered a historic landmark, and just down the street sits a statue of Alex Haley at the Annapolis city dock, where Kunta Kinte arrived in America, as conveyed in the book Roots.

We may understand the story and the legacy of Juneteenth from an intellectual perspective. There are more than enough constitutionalists and legal minds that can inform us about the structural fabric of slavey, emancipation, segregation, and then desegregation. My focus is on the sufferings of this present time, I wager that without self-love as the foundation of our personal codes of conduct, we will never be free indeed. This revelation was inspired by experiences I have had in the world of big business with other Black professionals and a recent traumatic encounter with a Black female OBGYN in New York City.

On many occasions when I would commute to work in the dawn’s early light, during my perilous fight to survive on Wall St.

I watched as some Black professionals smiled and laughed with the dominate culture, they put on a performance so gallantly to influential leaders.

When those same senior managers that happened to mostly be non-Black turned their back.

So consumed with streaming insecurity,
this fictive sisters and brothers would sneer at me.

The message was clear, their hostile stare.
Passive aggressive bombs silently bursting in air,
gave proof that they did not want this little Black girl who was 10, 20, or even 30 years their junior thinking she could ever take their spot.

A threat to them!? At that point in time, I certainly was not.

Nonetheless I was determined to still let this little light of mine shine.

I was just trying to fulfill my hired role, they must have forgot.
Not too long ago within these same corridors, we were on the auction block.

That opening bell would sound, scenes of unthinkable horror, sorrow, and uncontrollable conditions by which our ancestors were bound.

One hundred years and some change of freedom in the western world, however the soiled banner of self-hate yet waves.

The elders said let us march on until victory is won, but what is good is victory over captivity if we have internalized so much that we have become in some respects our own workers of iniquity.

It is Ok, even when they appear chummy, I know they will never actually ‘like’ me.

Despite it all, I succeeded.

Just when I thought I was on my way to the top.
I had no idea this would happen when I turned that knob.

My clothing was removed and with trust, I put my legs in the stirrups.
Then boom, something was taken from me by one of my own.

It was a boisterous betrayal.

The deepest recesses of my heart have been searching for the faith that the dark past has taught us and the hope that the ancestors claim the present has brought us.

Still the memory stalks me.

She exposed me, she touched me, she insulted and yelled at me.

She stomped her feet and waved around vaginal medical instruments up above our heads before entering me.

She raised her hand to me.

She disregarded my humanity.

She degraded and disrespected me.

She collected her coins and now she has disappeared on me.

She was so drunkenly deluded with her standing and stature within a pale mostly male institution that she scarred and then discarded me.

Wow another sister did that to me.

Nonetheless I am determined to still let this little light of mine shine

I think I know where she learned that from.

More focused on her image than her impact.
She forgot one important fact.

Despite a title and position, she is still also Black.
She is not one of their brothers, so they will never unconditionally have her back.

It would have been wise to just apologize.
Now she has brought on her own demise.

I hope the thirty pieces of silver was worth it.
Self-hate confines the mind, callouses the heart, and corrupts the soul.

We must challenge each other to conduct ourselves better.
We cannot allow the oppressed to become the oppressor.

Freedom is done a dishonor every time we are unfaithful to self-love and unduly mistreat one another.

Is our shared history not enough?
The lack of basic human decency is too common.

Nonetheless I am determined to still let this little light of mine shine.

I know that I am protected by the divine.

Internalized racism often wears Prada.
Blinded by self-hate, not recognizing what they perpetuate.

It is the spiritual driver responsible for the stench of mostly fake rich sunken place dwellers that abuse whatever position of power they have.

They are trying to overcome feeling disempowered in environments where they are not the majority even though their vocation provides material success above the means of most people across the world.

Their misuse of authority to take an allegorical rod to the hind of other Black people they perceive as lesser than them is an unconscious defense of the fragile egos that emblematically enslave them.

Representative of a repugnant compulsion to gain more narcissistic supply for their insatiable hubris.

Nonetheless I am determined to still let this little light of mine shine.
I know that I am protected by the divine.

Every so often, I get nauseous from the rankness.
Still, I sip my tea and count it all joy.