Black, Beautiful... and Begrimed: The Necessity of the Young, Black Femme's Spiritual Revolution

A brief discussion on what it means to be spiritual and why black women are more spiritually at-risk in America.

photo by Halie Jeaniece

Throughout our lives, there is a constant flux of the external taking root within the internal—meaning that our external influences (such as money, careers, relationships, health, and just society in general) are often disrupting and drastically changing the groove and sync of our internal nature. While some factors are easily - or forcibly - ignored, they can still form a chasm between who we truly are and who we feel we must be in the present moment. After all, our lives cannot and will not stop just because we are going through internal crises.

And while the flux is universal, I would be remiss to not acknowledge the various, often invisible, factors that influence the degree to which we all experience it. I’m talking about racism, gender, sexuality, class, and beauty standards—the latter of which is not talked about enough for my comfort (but will be discussed at length in this blog). All of these things can significantly affect the ability and ease with which we climb up the ladder of success by either denying or allowing us credibility, access, opportunity, and just the basic right to exist.

If you’re like me—that is, young, black, a woman, and from a lower class socioeconomic background—the aforementioned may have cast an umbrella of despair over your life that will take some considerable time and effort to disassemble. And the work that must be put in to claim your right to just be with or without the decorum of wealth and achievement that American society enforces will be hard, to say the least. But while I don’t believe that the issues that I and everyone else within my demographic face are insurmountable, it is important to recognize and make space for their discussion. Because if we don’t, then who will? No one.

So now that one question is answered, I would like to turn my attention to the heart and soul of what I want to achieve when I discuss the issues that black women, like myself, are currently facing: the importance of being free to be who we are. And because this blog space will emphasize spirituality, among other means of defying oppressive conventions for black women, I want to touch on what spirituality is and why it is an integral part of alternative wellness for us.

Trying to weave and strategize our way within and around society can often leave us feeling lost, hopeless, and empty. And while I believe that society is too stiff and rooted in oppression to be everything we need it to be right at this moment, we can change it by changing ourselves, bit by bit. To me, this starts with acknowledging that there are powers that are well beyond the physical realm and that we, because we exist, are a part of them—and they are a part of us. Once this realization comes into effect, we must actively practice and take part in a relationship with them—one that considers our place within society without being dismissive of our much smaller place in the universe at large.

What these powers look like can vary from person to person, culture to culture, or identity to identity. For American black women, historically, it has been God that is celebrated within the Christian tradition. But it doesn’t have to be. It can be whatever feels the most familiar and the most right to you and what takes into account your experiences and struggles. For me and other black women in most recent times, it is the spirits of those in our family who have walked on this earth and have passed on to the spiritual realm (this practice is called ancestral veneration, and I will touch on this heavily in future posts). I love this perspective because it existed way before colonization in traditionally African religions and is practiced widely across the diaspora.

Spirituality is a powerful gateway to both unlocking our truest selves and allowing them to be cast into presence. By forming relationships with spiritual powers, we can free ourselves from the trials that force us to constantly focus on the external world-- to the detriment of our internal selves. This constant focus on the external has caused many of us to replace the internal with it when they should really be in partnership with each other. There is much power in being untethered to external confines and allowing ourselves to exist without them. When we finally grant access to be who we truly are and honor every part of ourselves, we can then attain the peace and acceptance that we deserve.