I saw a documentary on Youtube titled : Beah: A Black Women Speaks last week and tonight I just got in from seeing a show  titled Black Museum. Both? Very uplifting and powerful. Both? Connected with each other and with me in many ways. Both? also made me feel a lesser connection with my people.

You see, black people are so mixed up, inside and out. All talking different doctrines and all marching to different beats. All praising Malcolm and Martin out of the very same mouth. It leaves you feeling, yeah, proud but also a little confused. And I am not even sure Why!? We say we don’t want to be boxed in yet, we keep boxing ourselves in. Trying very hard to create a people, a culture, who can all stand for one thing together. We are most American in these types of situations. But yet, we are not waving around our flag freely or proudly instead we are keeping our American tied and wrapped.

At the end of the show, Black Museum, the actors and actress were all celebrating the beat that they found- I guess in America- and started stomping it out; you know doing the sorority step thingy. It was entertaining, yeah. But after I thought about it. I felt they all should have been stomping differently instead of in unison to celebrate the diversity of black folk. There is no way, a people who been through that much will come out being the same.

Nevertheless, In all the acting tonight I saw Beah. And all the older generation of black actors and actress who went on before us. I saw Cosby and Poitier. I even saw Denzel. (If I said Washington, you would have no idea I was talking about Denzel). I saw their struggle and their fight to get on stage and give my people a form of entertainment we would enjoy. I also saw them teaching the younger generation how to act and accept themselves.

In addition, I heard Beah saying words are powerful and stressing the VOICE. I; therefore, tried to listen to each voice and each word that was delivered. And what I took away from them is this we are ‘dancing to the rhythm of [our] own definition’.