Small Pink Dreams

Today we celebrate the life + spirit of the legendary #KatherineDunham. Born this day in Chicago, she transformed the technique and creative talents of young, Black dancers across the West Indies, United States, and Africa. While at the University of Chicago, Mama Dunham was one of the first Black women to attend and graduate with a Bachelors, Masters, and Doctorate degree in Anthropology.

Simultaneously, Mama Dunham trained in #Moscow, performed ‘A Negro Rhapsody’ at the Chicago Beaux Arts Theater🎫, danced with the Chicago Opera Company, and accepted an invitation to appear before Rosenwald Foundation which tremendously supported her dance career. Mama Dunham returned her gifts to her community by revolutionizing American modern dance. ✨

Her fusion of traditional African movements into anthropological dance showed the world that African heritage is beautiful. More importantly, Mama Dunham is recognized for bringing Caribbean and African influences to a European-dominated dance realm. In the 1950s, the "Matriarch of Black Dance", Mama Dunham founded the Katherine Dunham Company to formally teach a groundbreaking sequence that combines the innovative interpretations of Caribbean dances, traditional ballet, African rituals, and African American rhythm to create the Dunham Technique.

"Throughout her distinguished career, Katherine Dunham earned numerous honorary doctorates, awards and honors. Among the list are: the Presidential Medal of Arts, The Kennedy Center Honors with Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Stewart, Elia Kazan and Virgil Thompson, the plaque d'Honneur Haitian-American Chamber of Commerce Award, French Legion of Honor, Southern Cross of Brazil, Grand Cross of Haiti, NAACP Lifetime Achievement Award, The Albert Schweitzer Music Award at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Academy Laureate, and the Urban Leagues’ Lifetime Achievement Award. Miss Dunham’s recognitions also include a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame, inclusion in the book I Have a Dream, and the Women's International Center’s Living Legacy Award. In her final years, she received an Honorary Degree in Fine Arts from Harvard and Jacobs Pillow gave a special Tribute to Katherine Dunham for her 93rd birthday. In 2000 Katherine Dunham was named America’s irreplaceable Dance Treasure." (SOURCE)

Read more on Mama Katherine Dunham. Share, Like, and Comment on the post below, I would love to hear your thoughts! 💓

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lowkey I be thinkin' she talkin' bout me.

The personification of his words without a name reads like a bullet shot in the dark...

Our brothers next door are ambushing Our most personal and political thoughts.

When we scream "HELP!, they argue "Why?"

When we scream "PROTECT US!", they argue "bUt wHaT abOuT mEee?"

When we say "LISTEN TO OUR PLEADS!", they argue "watch your tone."

As many of us opened our music streaming platforms to begin the song "Snow on tha Bluff", we all heard J. Cole declare beef on Black women intellectual thoughts. It deeply disappointed me to hear J. Cole take time out of his unimpressive, common day and a radicalizing moment in United States history to police the forlorn petitions from a Black woman whom shall not be named. To be clear, my criticism is against the silencing of Black women intellectual thoughts. This moment triggers more than just one woman within the hip-Hop public sphere; it attacks many like myself that are outspoken, unapologetic, and intimate with the knowledge we have learned from many levels of life. When there are screams for protection of Black women and Black girls, this means nothing is left on the table. It means protect our voices, our physical space, our spiritual freedoms, and it especially means protect intellectual property.

This moment strikes as a common occurrence among Black folks in the United States. Many times, our Black women philosophers and scholars have to remind men that the struggle focuses not on the respectable appearance of political engagement but on the ideas and literature produced in the movement. If we research the life and written works of Anna Julia Cooper, PhD., we will find the exact same rhetoric. In fact, Vivian M. May explores this phenomenon in Dr. Cooper's biography Visionary Black Feminist: A Critical Introduction (2007), where she notes a disturbing "tendency among many writers to focus on Black women intellectuals’ lives rather than their theories. Consequently, Black women’s arguments and theoretical contributions have frequently been under-engaged or even dismissed altogether because so much attention is concentrated on their life stories." Sounds familiar?

J. Cole is an artist that internalizes marginalization within his own (p)OWER. He is a mere bumblebee bat being stretched thin. He has told us countless times in various songs about his inability to respect the intellectual power of Black women.

"Purple emoji with horns on it/ Like the devil but ain't nothin devilish, babe"

She know me like a book, its too easy to read my ass/ Unhappy stressed, yelling don’t mislead my ass/ I mean I make it so easy don’t please my ass/ If shit was on the other foot then you would leave my ass (Love Me Not, 2010)

Do you believe that Eve had Adam in check? (Forbidden Fruit, 2013)

I get the skirt when I want (skrrt!)/ Due to the money aroma (somebody)/ My girl she got a diploma (smoke)/ She got wife written all over (Kevin's Heart, 2018)

So what else are we to expect when we hear yet another song that bullies and insults the intelligence of a Black woman?

Why would anyone want to defend Snow on tha Bluff (the song)? Does this song not sting with intra-community envy and emotional abuse? Does this song not ooze with patriarchal dismissal of yet another Black woman's contribution to radical movements? Doesn't this song parallel the countless moments in Hip-Hop that yet another Black woman is subjected to public bullying, gaslighting, and exhausting mansplaining?

What will it take for the world to accept Black women with grace?

There is no honor in death.

There is no pride in life.

Where do we find education when we lack trust in our neighbors?

Our neighbors share the intimacies of intellect and are met with suckled teeth that scream

"(o)PPOSITION."

...Y'all not tired?

*takes a deep breath*

The song is so unnecessary to the liberation of Black women and men. It reeks of digression and manipulation that provides a visceral example of why Black women and men struggle to work with one another. Our Elder, Miss Ella Jo Baker, once said “The major job was getting people to understand that they had something within their power that they could use, and it could only be used if they understood what was happening and how group action could counter violence…” So what is left when the other half of our Divine existence rejects the mercy of Woman; and shrinks lower than being a faker Snow on tha Bluff?

I listened deeply and I read closely what one of Our own revealed about one of Us. My heart aches for an answer...