If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.

If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!

O kinsmen we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?

Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
 
 
 Rolling green fields,blue seas, swaying palm trees, gorgeous sunsets and magnificent waterfalls- must be somewhere in the Carribean , right? Wrong!!!!! This is the majesty of the continent of Africa.

Surprised! When most people think of Africa the images that came to mind are usually of poverty and devasatation. They hear “Africa” and immediately picture little children with bellies swollen from Kwashioka. 

As the daughter of Nigerian immigrants growing up in an African American community,   I always did my best to blend in.  Yet I still stuck out like a sore thumb.  My name was funny, my accent was off and my hair was always braided in eccentric styles. To make matters worse, I knew exactly what my classmates thought when they heard I was African. In fact, they made it quite plain…I was the African booty scratcher. I spent the majority of my childhood denying my ties to the continent of Africa. I was ashamed of my heritage and the fact that it made me different. However, all this changed when I journeyed to Africa for the first time. I was searching for ruin, poverty and destruction, but instead I found grandeur, majesty, and peace. I was shocked by some of the minutest things - from the flat escalators in the airport which I had seen in Germany to the expensive cars outside in the parking lot. Where was the Africa I had been taught about?

As I reflect back on that time, I realize that I was so ashamed because of what I perceived Africa to be. Western media battered me with persistent images of hunger, poverty, disease and despair and I refused to be associated with such images. As I discovered the essence of Africa I began to unravel the beauty in myself.  

                Not to discredit those who are truly suffering, but isn't it time to look at the other side? Did you know that with oil, gas, timber, diamonds, gold, coltan and bauxite, Africa is home to some of the largest deposits of natural resources in the world?  Did you know that Africa produces 46 per cent of the world's chromium, 48 per cent of its diamonds, 29 per cent of its gold and 48 per cent of its platinum? Did you know that there were eight African billionaires in 2008, four of whom are richer than Oprah Winfrey? Did you know that an African helped spawn the invention of the internet? Or that Africa was in the height of civilization, while Europe was in its so called “Dark Ages”? 

                Yet despite this obvious greatness, it seems that many people of African descent have lost their sense of self-respect and pride. So many of us have internalized this feeling of inferiority.    In fact, Black women everywhere from Africa to the United States tamper with every part of their physique in an effort to be more ”mainstream”. 

My sisters, don’t believe the hype. Remember: As the old proverb says, “ Tales of hunting will always glorify the hunter, until the lioness is her own historian.” 
 
African Proverbs 10/20/2009
 
From: http://twitter.com/AfricanProverbs
 
 
I am a black woman 
the music of my song 
some sweet arpeggio of tears 
is written in a minor key 
and I 
can be heard humming in the night 
Can be heard 
humming 
in the night
I saw my mate leap screaming to the sea 
and I/with these hands/cupped the lifebreath 
from my issue in the canebrake 
I lost Nat's swinging body in a rain of tears 
and heard my son scream all the way from Anzio 
for Peace he never knew....I 
learned Da Nang and Pork Chop Hill 
in anguish 
Now my nostrils know the gas 
and these trigger tired fingers 
seek the softness in my warrior's beard


I am a black woman 
tall as a cypress 
strong 
beyond all definition still 
defying place 
and time 
and circumstance 
assailed 
impervious 
indestructible 
Look 
on me and be 
renewed

 
 
  “Six things are difficult in this world/To be a woman/To be black/To be Cuban/To believe in love/To believe in people and the possibility that the world can be better.”