I Love Me Some Black Women ❤️
Who inspires you to LOVE? | Finding the Right Words February Challenge ✊🏾
EDITOR’S NOTE: Just popping in real quick to apologize for the delay in publishing this entry. My Finding The Right Words challenges are a labor of love but they are, in fact, laborious, haha! Sometimes I need a little rest so I can stay fired up and not burned out🔥. Hope that’s cool. Enjoy Week 1 of the February INSPIRE challenge! May it inspire you to find the right words. -J
I, like most Black folks, grew up watching movies at a young age that I had no business watching. One such film was The Color Purple (1985) and it was screened repeatedly in my home, so much so that my sister, God-sisters, cousins and I can quote the whole script from memory to this day. My mother introduced us chirrens to the film, its music, its humor, and its warnings about violence, abuse, racism before I was even old enough to read chapter books. And I soaked it all up; the scenery, the beautiful brown skin, the trauma and the drama, the story of a woman learning to love a life that had given her so much pain.
I read Alice Walker’s novel the film is based on (also when I was wayyy too young) around the age of 10 and discovered in its pages even more women characters who sacrificed and suffered for one another and loved each other still more fiercely through it all. Bonding and loving in spite of their trauma. Walker’s seminal text at first appears to be a tragedy, but it is in fact a celebration of the bonds of sisterhood and the profound impact Black women can have on each other, uplifting, encouraging, and loving one another.
Alice Walker’s works celebrate the fullness that is Black womanhood and illustrate the power of love, and the power of being loved by Black women.
I had to know more about the woman who created this story that my sisters and cousins and mother and I bonded over, that had struck me in the heart at such a young age and stayed stuck in my mind ever since. Google didn’t really exist (wow! I’m old!) but thankfully I had the library and I had a mother who’d gifted me a very large and very beautiful book, “I Dream A World: Portraits of Black women who changed America,” a collection of interviews with some of the most influential and prominent Black women in history, including Alice Walker.
I learned Alice Walker was blind in one eye after a childhood accident. I learned she grew up in the South (just like me!). I learned she’d been writing since the age of 8 (just like me!). I learned about her respect and admiration for fellow Black woman novelist, Zora Neale Hurston, and how she dedicated much of her career to archiving Zora’s work and cementing her legacy (I, too, admire Zora). I learned about womanism, her advocacy for Black women, and her invention of the word “womanist” (she literally found the right words lol).
Black women have always been the loves of my life.
In my adulthood, I have learned new things about Alice Walker. Such as her staunch support of the Palestinian people and the end of the apartheid system in Gaza, which I love. I’ve also learned about her support of the disgraced, bigoted author J.K. Rowling, which disappoints me. I’ve learned about all the times she’s been accused of being antisemitic and it concerns me. I’ve learned about the fluidity of her sexuality and that’s so cool to me.
In my research process for this February challenge to honor and exemplify the Black history makers who inspire me, I had the rude realization that no one is perfect. People are in fact human and there are people who, while I admire their work and am motivated by their impact on society and my community, hold views I don’t necessarily agree with. They probably wouldn’t have even liked me if we ever knew each other (don’t meet your heroes, folks. I learned this the hard way).
Love is the most powerful, true, helpful, happiest, healing resource on this planet. And Black women have love in abundance.
Still, “The Color Purple” and by extension, Alice Walker, inspire me. It is Alice Walker’s works (among the works of others) that celebrate the fullness that is Black womanhood and illustrate the power of love, and the power of being loved by Black women.
I love Black women so much.
I love my Black mother, grandmothers, God-mother, and aunties. I love my cousins, sisters, coworkers and friends. I love the Black women I don’t even know and who don’t know me because Black women have always been the loves of my life. Friendship and care from Black women have enriched my life. The prayers and support of Black women have saved my life.
I know I am my sisters’ keeper.
I love the Black women I studied in the pages of books about them and authored by them. Through my ancestors, role models, mentors, and inspirations, I’ve come to know how love is the most powerful, true, helpful, happiest, healing resource on this planet. And Black women have love in abundance. And we share it and try to spread it. I believe that love is God’s work on earth.
I love the lessons I’ve learned from Black women. Even in hurt and disappointment, there is an undercurrent of understanding and forgiveness and respect and love.
No one is perfect. But Black women are as close as it gets. And I love us for real.
This entry was written for WEEK 1 of the Finding the Right Words February Challenge under the theme INSPIRE. Follow along using the graphic above and write about whatever comes to mind with the corresponding prompts. Share with me using the tag #FTRW or email me at jdoggett9 [at] gmail.
There’s no wrong way to journal. You just gotta find the right words. Happy Writing!
Love this, thank you, and I’m keeping you too!
Hello, my name is Lynelle. I have another publication for poetry as well. I like what you have written about love and incorporating The Color Purple. Me? I love Zora the best! Her & Toni are who inspired me to write. You know, the color purple is traumatizing for me, I think I watched it to early as a kid. I am now going to revisit it. It’s been on my mind since the new version was released last year. I look forward to reading more writings from you!! Thank you for this piece!