Gratitude to Anima Vox

Many thanks to Tadeau and Carole Ott Coelho of Anima Vox for using my words from Am I Next in your first Cafezinho performance honoring Black Lives Matter. To view the full mini concert recorded on June 22, 2020, fast forward to 5:00.

Comments

New Site

To read the latest on Leslye's Labyrinth, visit http://bit.ly/leslyeslabyrinth

My Anger

Anger drains me -- emotionally and physically. It is an act of violence against myself and I try not to experience it intensely for this reason. The celebration or glorification of the culture of violence angers me especially when it is done by a person who has been given authority. A priest in my archdiocese posting a photo on social media of himself holding an automatic firearm, a weapon of war, while wearing his clerical collar angers me greatly. As a Black woman in a southern state, I am aware of the use of law and order rhetoric as a racist trope as is the priest's expressed intention of "protecting my people and property." We also live in a period when stand your ground laws are used to justify murder. Sadly, I remember the murder of a child, Tamir Rice, who was killed because he was a Black boy playing with a toy gun. There are many people who respect firearms and use them for hunting and sport. They understand and respect the deadly force at their fingertip. Gro...

Matilda McCrear: The Last Living Survivor of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Upon my birth, the State of Alabama identified me as "colored." In my lifetime, our label has moved from "colored" to "Negro" to "Black" to "African-American." These identifiers were initially used to ensure we would be reminded constantly that in the eyes of the law we were neither fully human nor full citizens. As a child, I remember the sense of pride in proclaiming "Black Power" and "I'm Black and I'm proud" as statements of resistance to the common narrative even if only at home with our parents. The Black Lives Matter movement is a proclamation of another truth long denied as we demand the undoing of white supremacy. My elders affirmed our inherent God-given dignity as they shared their lived experiences of blatant oppression as descendants of enslaved Africans. As a child, the kidnapping and enslavement of my ancestors seemed parts of the distant past as did the Emancipation Proclamation. Most of my g...

Leslye's Labyrinth

Search This Blog