An Evolution of Consciousness

Let’s be clear, it’s always time, and that truth, even today, the evolution of consciousness that attacks black excellence is alive and well. To bring strength against power is the absolute of what black excellence represents. This excellence recalls what was always present but seldom is conveyed positively. Black excellence is a part of our DNA. It is a part of our means to claim an arrogance that speaks more to pride and integrity. This pride, this integrity label, keeps us going, but not as people like it should be. The team of one projects unity and single-mindedness. Black people become that force that so many fear by thinking like one. Standing up and being who you are spiritually and emotionally are the character traits that have carried black people through so many battles, most of which occur on our soil at the hands of our suppressors. These battles held within as a result of racism have never been extinguished, but it has been hiding and lurking in an attempt to find other ways to control and eliminate. In every meaningful setting, some punish severely and unjustly. Some judge by color and not by character or accomplishment. Through this type of segregation, people of color are often held back and hardly scrutinized, and for that effort, success usually escapes many of us.

Watching the U.S. vs. Billie Holiday, a film that captured the essence of what black excellence means, taught me that the fight for justice and respect should be less about money and more about the fairness of opportunity, with our God-given right to be treated as a human being. As black people often hear from these oppressors, moving on and turning the other cheek would be easier if our treatment in the past hadn’t continued. From the movie, Ms. Holiday was an activist without knowing it. What she did and how she carried out her deepest emotions were nothing short of a global impact. Her compelling life story, filled with shame and regret, still found a way to rise through song. She taught me, sixty-two years later, how committed and disciplined she had become. Her failures weren’t about the addiction she lived with, but more about being triumphant even through her pain and remaining vigilant and forthright. She was never a victim through it all, but she was a warrior who faced the odds all of her life and won. Had her life been less bitter and sweeter, her added accomplishments would have been monumental, as her early demise quieted her.

Ms. Holiday, like so many others of her time, has been kept a secret. But these secrets of great black men and women are no longer hidden. You see, the cream always rises without apology. It consumes its rightful place in the midst of all that surrounds it. Through her controversial rendition of ‘Strange Fruit,’ Ms. Holiday captured the reality of life during slavery. The horrid treatment was the white man’s demonized entertainment without remorse, and more about being entertained. Strange Fruit, and its profound lyrics depicting hatred, could not be faced as our oppressors tried to force Ms. Holiday to stop singing the song because they couldn’t handle the reminder of their unjust deeds. But what’s amusing is that those amends have not been set forth to make good those evil deeds. No sorrow! No regret! No change! The cruelty continues, and our fight for survival lives on, fighting for every inch and those forty acres.