Their children are born, revered as beautiful, receive rightfully the world’s love. No one judges them for their sexual partners or the sex tapes that leak. No one asks them to settle down their finger snaps or tone down their hair color. Where in the world do they love a Black Girl for being herself? We are primed to bear witness to Kardashians and Jenners pretending to be Black women with their cornrows and Black boyfriends, their acrylics beaming under the hot light, the world their stage. The phone glued to my ear as we cackle between shit talk and ferocious laughter. There are these moments that I hold close to my chest. I introduce to her June Jordan’s mantra “ I am not wrong: Wrong is not my name” and we weep a little between laughter. But it’s hard to believe someone like me, especially when the world is fixed on telling her how strong and loud and wrong she is. T, who snaps her eyes when pointing across the room, need not pray for forgiveness, I say. Praying faithfully for forgiveness, because she’s begun to believe that she is hard to love. My Sister, T, is too this woman unapologetically, listening to Beyoncé with her three Black daughters and her eldest Black son. I too have lived on that block, in that house, first door to the right and you could find me: Angry Black Girl/Strong Black Girl/Black Girl You Call On When You Need to Get Things Done.
Which is where our sisterhood thickens, molasses strong. She’s always accused of being too “rough” on people. She’s learned how to get her point across neatly: a knife in a drawer full of spoons.
And these movements are hers, just like they were her mother’s. It is not a performance of blackness - she is a Black woman. Whatever she says, it’s usually with a snap of her eyes, a cut of her lips, or a finger wag. My sister-in-law, who I call my Sister, is what most would like to call a “firecracker.” She married my youngest brother, born to a father who was married to my mother lifetimes before, and we’ve been kin ever since.
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