I am the convertible top, the traffic light and the multitudes of inventions created by men and women of African decent.  I am the doctors and lawyers and I am the crack head and the criminal.  I am the home owner and the welfare family.  I am the strong beautiful single Black mother and I am the drunk and skirt chaser,  I am the person running from who I am and I am the proud Black man standing in your face..

            I am the child in the ghetto with no hope for a future and success and I am the privileged child who is expected to be a success.  I am a sum total to all my people.  Those who have struggled those who have failed and those who have succeeded.  I am the sum total of every black man and woman in the past, the present and into the future.  What I have is because of them.  What I am about is knowing where I came from, what I live with and what I’ll have in the future. 

All my people is who I am!

Reading his bio, his who I am, made me reflect and think about who I am.  This week, I got caught up in an emotional roller coaster ride with a friend who is trying to understand the differences in our diverse communities.  She saw a message posted on the message board and waited until she could get up the nerve to respond and post her comments.  She really is trying to understand, but in posting her comments, old anger and hurt arose and her words appeared as a act of aggression. 

For the better part of Saturday and Sunday morning, I spent time talking with my friend to help her talk through her experience and get some of her feelings out and in the open to look at them so they would no longer have dominion over her.  After cursing, screaming, and crying about this relationship, in the end it all boiled down to betrayal and the words of betrayal spoken by her friend and their mutal friends.  Not only did their relationship end, her relationship with the only support group she knew ended as well. 

Growing pains -- God they hurt.  Words can hurt as well if the words are somehow fused to the memory of past pains.  And then there are the looks, the stares, the glances, the words spoken, the assumptions, the words "did I say that, I didn't mean to say that" and some believe you did say that because they assumed you were someone else and not who you are and they won't talk to you to find out because they have summed you up and are now making statements about you purporting to be fact when they are not factual statements but you know who you are but no one believes you because of something someone else said about you. 

So you stay away from all women who look or act like them because THEY ALL believe as she believes and I can't talk to them because they won't talk to me because they don't like me because I'm not like them and who are they to judge me especially since they don't know me and haven't spoken with me or tried to get to know me SO I WILL CALL HER A NAME and say it in a vile way which will cause her to attach the name and the tone in which I said it to the ball of pain that occupies a space or place within her soul to be drudged up like sewer water from some built in sump pump causing her to hate ALL WOMEN WHO LOOK AND ACT LIKE ME because we are hateful and say hateful things and who was she to judge me when she never knew me or talked to me or got to know me. 

I WILL SEGREGATE ALL WOMEN LIKE THAT and will call them names and will tell all of my friends about them and deduce they are who they are and not what they say they are because they are hateful and say hateful things and my friends will believe me because they are my friends and they won't go near them and THEY WILL CALL THEM NAMES and will question their existence and invalidate them causing them to separate and segregate themselves from me and I won't know them because out of sight IS out of mind and I don't want to think about them or understand them because they ain't worth understanding WHO ARE THESE HOITY TOITY B'S who think their stuff don't stink looking down their noses at me thinking themselves better and they are not but they JUDGE ME, they JUDGE ME and condemn me for BEING ME. 

Yes, we will segregate ourselves from you because we don't want the likes of your kind around us to call us names to say hateful things about us and we will look down our noses and make assumptions because we don't know and you don't want us to know which leaves the door open for us to make up what we want and WHY ARE YOU THAT WAY and they will respond WHO ARE YOU TO QUESTION ME 'cause I was here before you and you have no right to question me and WHY ARE YOU QUESTIONNING ME, and WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN that you don't know what I know and haven't seen what I've seen ARE YOU REALLY WHAT YOU SAY YOU ARE because I'm noticing you don't look like what you say you are because WE HAVE A CERTAIN LOOK and you don't look like that so you're an imposter and cannot be trusted so get away from us because we don't want your kind around here.

ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE HERE are you sure this is where you are supposed to be because I don't think so because I can look at you and tell you're not supposed to be here so why are you here and HAVEN'T WE GOTTEN OVER THAT who do you think you are and what do you think you are because you look like a throwback to the 60's to me and that's not necessary, that's not necessary anymore cause we don't have to be that way anymore cause WE DON'T HAVE TO ACT LIKE THAT ANYMORE, anymore, anymore.

And there was NO UNDERSTANDING only MISUNDERSTANDING and silence crept across the lesbian front because women stopped talking, cause women stopped talking about their differences and feared appearing ignorant so they were quiet and hid their ignorance and feared offending so they separated themselves in tiny little groups all over the country and no one could reach anyone because there were NO TELEPHONE LINES or CELL PHONES or FAX MACHINES to reach all of these sisters who stopped talking and no one could get to the places where all of these women were and the organizations failed because no one was coming because the women STOPPED TALKING because of FEAR!  BECAUSE OF FEAR.

Some days I am butch, some days I am femme, some days I want to be catered to and some days I don't.  Some days I lay in the tub with hot oils, incence and candles burning with Miles blowing his horn for atmosphere and other days I take a shower and layer my scents with Ella and Sarah.  Some days I wish to have strong arms hold me and tell me "baby it's okay."   And other days I wish to hold you in my strong arms and say "baby it's okay."  I am every woman, the good, the bad and the ugly and I sometimes make mistakes.  I have an insatiable thirst for knowledge because I know knowledge is power and with knowlege I will have power and with knowledge I will be a powerful woman.  Don't judge me.

This was the companion thought for this month's Commentary, The Pride And The Prejudice.