Look, it’s been a long couple of weeks. We have some big life changes going on over here at Mocha Momma Headquarters and that doesn’t even include shutting down a school year that is trying to eat me alive. So, I have been absent lately just about everywhere and yesterday when I checked Twitter and Facebook I saw my good friend and wonderful photographer and published author Karen Walrond ask for permission to just be pissed off about something but she was also asking (or was I reading between the lines, dear Karen?) for us to kick her in the pants and do something good and beautiful instead.

I know I’ve used this photo before, but Karen and I almost never take pictures standing NEXT to one another. So, here. I’m using it again.

I responded to her with something I shared with her in the past when I do that thing where I focus too much on the negative, soul-sucking parts of life. It was a quote from Buddha.

Fashion your life as a garland of beautiful deeds.

It’s written on a magnet on my refrigerator and I see it so often that I sometimes don’t see it at all, but the words are too close to my soul to give them up and forget about them altogether. Crappy stuff has happened in my life, but no more crappy than other people. Or maybe it’s just my outlook and how I choose to see things. Another thing I keep close to me is from a book on the 6 archetypes by which we live that helped me see what I was really doing when I was going through the complete and total destruction of my marriage. It was to identify which of the 6 (the Martyr, the Innocent, the Orphan, the Magician, the Wanderer, and the Warrior) archetypes I was experiencing at the time.

I wanted to choose the Warrior, but that stage came next.

For me, about 7 years ago, I was the Wanderer. From the book:

“…the first job of the Wanderer is true sight: to declare or acknowledge that the cage is a cage and the captor is a villain.”

Oddly enough, I assumed later on that my husband at the time was a Wanderer, too, and probably saw me as the villain. I probably will never get to ask him that question, so I have to stick to what I know about me.

Karen reminded me of that when she asked that question and I knew, without an ounce of doubt, that she was grappling with the same idiocy I had been thinking about during the last few days. But I can’t really respond to this “science”. In fact, I can’t believe I should spend time GIVING THIS A THOUGHT. I won’t even link to it here because if you’ve been paying attention this week and you know or love a Black woman, then you know to what I’m referring. The advice from Buddha, in fashioning beautiful deeds, allows me to remember that I don’t have to spend one iota of my time or intellect in disputing such horrors about Black women. My job as a mentor and coach and educator dictate otherwise: I will have to spend my energies telling little girls of color that they are just as beautiful as their white counterparts.

So, I’m thankful I have a platform.

And I try to be a good blogger and role model and example for my students (who have found my blog) (because I work at a technology school, so OF COURSE) and I try not to use any foul language, but I will make an exception in this case.

Girls? If you heard that nonsense this week, please listen carefully. It is all bullshit. You are not what some ridiculous scientist says you are nor are you less than his fake research suggests. You are much more and I know you will spend your energies in this life on trying to feel better about yourselves. He is a fraud and a liar, but you will undoubtedly be presented with this attack on Black beauty again in your lifetime. It’s the easy way out for them to attack you. Don’t let it hurt. It means nothing.  I hope this video that Karen made and put on her own blog will help you.

One more thing, girls: this beauty thing that you will think is important at your age won’t matter an ounce someday. It’s a struggle, but work hard on your insides like I’ve taught you. I will fight that jackassery with the fibers of my very being because you deserve better. I’m here to remind you of that.