Journey to Empowerment (7 page)

B
Y
M
ARIA
D
ENISE
D
OWD

I
t's been a long day, my Sweetness. Let's connect—although it's late—for a moment, perhaps over a shared jumbo mug of mint tea infused with raw honey, Honey. We'll talk through the steam and share glimpses of our day past and our plans for tomorrow and the day after.

Maybe we'll split a sweet orange, ripped from its skin and handed from my lips to yours. We'll savor the citrusy zest that tingles our mouths wanting more.

Shall we soak in a warm bath scented with ginger or jasmine or lavender? And fill the room with candles and the kind of music we love to love by and by? In short order, the multisensory-surround-us-with-gentle-taps pulsate the epicenter of our blended hearts. This time, you'll rest against me as I massage your scalp, and tug at your earlobes and remind you of all the things you already know about yourself and us—my king, your queen, our kingdom. Playfully, you splash water—properly anointed—on my cinnamonness and we watch it bead onto your chocolateness, then into a pool of bliss. What a luscious thing we have.

Perhaps…just for fun, you'll shave my legs. You
know
how antsy I get about stubble. You'll glide your thumb along the inside curve of my slender foot and I'll wiggle my copper-painted toes because your kisses tickle so.

Our home is a bit chilly on this night, so we'll bustle our buttered nakedness into our bed, and like an army of veteran soldiers…left…left…left right left…our limbs intertwine in perfect formation. Who will light these candles? I'll defer to you, because you can take the heat of the cold better than me. But I'll keep your side warm, and witness the first cast of glow against my curves and your straight lines. You'll return to a waiting, wanting me…and we'll caress our Divinity.

I'm no longer chilly because we feel our skin to skin because we love the skin we're in and how our skins blend…infinitely. Oh, what a blessing you are to me…and me to you.

Good night…or perhaps good morning by now.

B
Y
K
ALI
A
SHTAR

Shall we, My Sweet?

Yeah, go 'head…

Yeah, go 'head…

Enjoy the decadent, dark and gooey.

Make me wanna go…ummmmm…Uh hum.

Yummy for my Honey Tummy.

My-eye King of thee Supreme Elixir…

Me, you, our lickety treats…Oh, yeah…

Just wanna sink my tongue into…

And whhhhirl until my honey tummy aches…

For your morning you.

Oh…jeez…my tasty treat.

Banquet for a Goddess…

Feast for a Warrior Priest.

A Fete…grandly, lusciously fashioned. Your syrup oh, so thick…and delicious. All up in my pores,

All up in my/your open door…To the grand room of passion hearts, And other lip-smackin' morsels. For your eyes and taste buds only. Spoon me up, lick the bowl.

This Honey Be yours to eat…A nibble here/there…li'l tang with a bang. Engulfed all over the place.

Raw, Raw Honey…

Black 'n' Strapped Molasses…Naturally Nectar…So Naturally So.

B
Y
M
ARIA
D
ENISE
D
OWD

T
herapists know. Physicians know. Prison administrators know. Spiritual healers know. Drug and alcohol rehab counselors know.

We all know someone who knows.

No, I don't
know
the precise statistics, but I'm certain that we'd all be floored if we did. However, people in the healing and empowerment business have worked with enough people and have garnered enough knowledge and insight on just how devastating sexual abuse committed against our children—and, primarily, our daughters—has been to the black community. Much of our rates of obesity, alcoholism, depression, drug abuse, promiscuity, prostitution, imprisonment, relationship and sexual disorders and dysfunction can be attributed to this single root cause—sexual abuse. And, from what we've likely witnessed among family members and sisterfriends, these kinds of wounds don't always heal with the neatness of a skinned knee. As sure as one has forgiven, the experience is surely not forgotten. Thus, “getting on with your life” may not be such an easy proposition, especially when we've continually dismissed the ordeals as commonplace.

“Well, that's life.” (According to whose laws of morality and humanity?)

“If I got over it, so can you.” (Is this the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?)

“It could have been worse.” (Says who?)

“Ain't no female safe. That's just the way it is.” (So, no one is responsible for protecting the other half of the world's population?)

How has it happened that so many of our children's rites of passage into man-and womanhood have been at merciless, fouled hands of pedophiles, rapists or sexual harassers? How has it happened that we have been so engrossed in our own busyness, fear and pride, that we haven't seen our children's anxieties and anguish? How is it that we can put the onus on our daughters to keep their “skirts down and panties up,” when someone much older, more trusted, and certainly more coy might be testing their innocence? This is not a “blame 'n' shame” crusade. However, we must talk about it to fully comprehend it…and its far-reaching consequences, when left ignored and the pieces disconnected. Let's consider the aftermath of the aches—most often subconsciously borne—passed on to next generations.

We have to talk about the warning signs. And there
are
always warning signs, if we're paying attention. A grown woman can conceal an abusive encounter. Children are not so ingenious. Even when they might not shed tears, there are signs that cry for help, and those signs are usually so commonly textbook, they're like cold, hard slaps in the face. We must not presume that our children “act out” because they are bad or are “naturally” quiet or withdrawn. Children don't plummet out of the blue. We need to protect our children's bodies, minds and souls, and not concern ourselves with creating “embarrassing situations” or financial hardships. Our children come into our world pure and wholly reliant on us for their safety and well-being. Know that the damage could be irreversible and those demons could follow them to their graves, but first not without many days and nights of living in the hell of the memories. Your assumptions about “survival” rates and probabilities don't matter. No child deserves to be force-fed this kind of anguish.

And women who've been victimized need to talk about it—both to help and heal. Forget nasty little family secrets, promises and hurt feelings. By talking about it, we can hopefully lift the burdens and possibly save a child from a similar fate.

We need to keep a brow raised to all of the people our children and teens come in contact with. Let's not sensationalize it. Most child predators don't lurk in bushes and dark alleyways. They sleep in our beds, sit at our dinner tables, babysit, borrow sugar from across the fence and take our children on outings. They could be our husbands, boyfriends, fathers, brothers, uncles, cousins, grandfathers, neighbors and close friends of the family. Most are men. Some are women. While some might assault without warning, most will take the time with our children to build trust and even love. Look closer into our children's eyes. Watch their interactions with and reactions to the people in their lives. We do the laundry; check it. We tuck them in at night; talk. Teach them the differences between “good” love and “bad” love. Then show them “good love” regularly and unconditionally. Assure them—through words and actions—that you love them and want them safe. Watch, listen…and never betray their trust in you.

We need to remove our rose-colored glasses and see things as they are—within our homes, schools, churches and other places where our children are presumed safe and secure. We need to share our stories of “plights of passage” so that we might save our village's children from similar fates.

B
Y
N
ANCY
L
EE

M
otherless herself at fifteen, my mother's journey was multifaceted. She immigrated to the United States from Jamaica having been coerced into marriage by another immigrant from home who played her fears of being a single woman in a strange, hostile country, of facing the world alone, of making a life by herself in the so-called Promised Land. There may have been some attraction, but her decision to marry my father probably was based mostly on fear.

In the States, her income came from what I see so many of our people doing today—caring for white people's children. Her articulate husband managed to snag a position as a law clerk until he was let go after the 1929 stock market crash. His new position as an elevator operator required long hours and enough endurance to face racism in all its demeaning dimensions. He was a proud, intelligent man who wore the mask of fake gratitude and fake cordiality while smothering real anger and the very real fear of not being able to adequately provide for his burgeoning family.

Always resilient and resourceful, Mom proposed getting a Harlem brownstone to convert into a rooming house. She would go to work using her newly gained skills as a seamstress while he managed the property. Proud and chauvinistic as he was, my father would have none of it. He wanted to return to Jamaica where he already owned land. She balked, but he insisted and eventually took the children back home without her. The separation lasted seven years until he became ill, and she was forced to return to Jamaica.

What she encountered when she arrived was a mortally ill husband who had been diagnosed with rapidly advancing cancer, but rumor had it that a jealous brother-in-law had poisoned him. Dreams of a good life in the Promised Land had faded into a bleak reality. Before my father succumbed to his fate, he impregnated my mother one last time and passed away two months before I was born. I look back from my adult perch and wonder how she endured; I doubt I could have.

I came out of the womb too soon. My older sister had had trouble in birth, too, and suffered irreparable brain damage, so she was never the true self her personality suggested—a friendly, outgoing foil for mother's nature would allow her to take care of the physical needs of her children with great skill while turning on us with a mighty tongue that could rip our self-esteem to shreds. We all felt it differently.

Newly widowed, my mother single-handedly brought her three children from the island to the States—one bewilderingly different, a heartbreakingly handsome and burdensome son, and a premature newborn. Back in Harlem, relatives provided shelter as she continued her journey to independence. A hard-won tenement apartment with rooms to let provided a way of making an extra buck for herself and her three children.

In our cold tenement apartment, my mother would listen to her baby girl crying and pleading to be let into her bed for comfort and solace; meanwhile, she needed that comfort and solace herself. Blessings from God and a diligent, watchful mother kept the apartment from catching fire from the oil stove we used for a little heat. Oh, the stress and broken sleep it must have caused.

My mother's only son, and substitute husband, would provide the catalyst for escaping the tenement with the GI Bill he'd earned after a stint in the U.S. Army. Mother had saved her pennies to make the down payment on a two-family Cape Cod home. We had made it to the Middle Class.

Her journey lasted ninety years. A proud and strong woman to the end, she died from a hospital mistake that left her helpless against a medication that completely cut off her circulation. While her death was unfair, her sacrifice provided for her children and her grandchildren, who would share the proceeds from the sale of that Cape Cod home.

When we retrace our ancestral heritage, it gives us the courage to go on because the nature of things tells us that their journey was usually more difficult than our own. We have the choice to embrace it, to learn from it, to be in awe of it or perhaps to deny it.

My mother was so many things, fulfilled so many roles—mother, breadwinner, matriarch, teacher, disciplinarian and role model.