“All My Life I Had To Fight…”

I was 4 years old when The Color Purple premiered. I had no business watching it as many times as I did, learning all the lines and understanding the content. Yet, I cried (still cry) when Ms. Sophia returned home from jail and felt her children didn’t know her, when Ms. Celie got her seamstress shop and when Shug sang from the Juke Joint to her Daddy’s Church.

My favorite scenes are:

1. When Shug helps Celie find the letters Nettie had been sending, and Shug reads them while scenes from the letters are acted out.

2. When Nettie returns from Africa with Celie’s children (I told y’all I love a full circle moment), and those children say, “Mama”, in their African accents. 😭😭😭

Two of the scenes I continue to act out:    

1. When Celie crooks her fingers, as if she is casting a spell on Mister, and says (I usually interchange lines from the wrong scene), “Until you do right by me…”

2. When Ms. Sophia says, “All my life I had to fight…”

I felt it at 4 and I feel it now.

I’ve been told, “You act hard all the time. I rarely see your soft side. I was scared to approach you.”  Then there is the feedback about the harshness of my posts.

When I see the posts/comments about Kamala (you can actually insert any Black woman from Joe’s list of choices) Ms. Sophia’s line pops back in my head.

My questions are:

Will our brothers protect us better than Mister did? Are our brothers going to refrain from being Harpo, i.e. will they come out from the thoughts of their daddies to support a Black woman in power? Are our sisters going to refrain from being a drunk Shug, by using their insecurities to tear another woman down? Are we ALL going to make sure Kamala (AND HER FAMILY) gets the protection ol’ girl Sarah Palin received?

Even if I wanted to run for office I couldn’t because, while I am not ashamed of anything I’ve done, I’m sure Michai, my sister and mother don’t want my past exposed.

Black women are tired of “being hard”, tired of standing on the front lines of fights, tired of advocating; we want to show our “soft sides” and sing about our vaginas in peace. But we will continue having to be Ms. Sophias (fighting in and out of the home) until others help us silence the Miss/Mister Millies of the world AND Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison, and Myles Cosgrove are arrested.

🎶God is trying to tell you something, God is trying to tell you something, Maybe God is trying to tell you something right now…🎶 (this doesn’t have anything to do with the post, I just felt it was only right to end with a Color Purple reference 🤷🏾‍♀️)