A Letter To My Brown Daughters & Yours

I AM A BLACK WOMAN. A woman of strength. A woman of power. A woman who can make a dollar out of fifteen cents just to feed the mouths of her little ones. A woman who sometimes MUST work multiple jobs under other CEO's while hustling her own multiple businesses to try to become a CEO of her own. A woman who keeps her house, plays Superwoman to her kids and do it all alone because I must, not because I want to. I am the mother AND the father (in some cases). I am the judge and the juror to people around me because I did not learn how to support and be proud of another. I am the woman who does not always know my own strength or understand what loving me should look like or even feel like. I am the woman who must go through hell before I finally get to heaven on earth. I am ridiculed for having a voice that speaks up and called moody because I am expressing my need for support and love. The woman who is encouraged to put her dreams off because it does not "make sense" to my ancestors, so I am encouraged to follow the reasonable route so that I could be able to pay my bills and support my family, still living below the poverty line. I am a woman who didn't know that credit meant more than cash and so I didn't secure either of them. I am the daughter of "What happens in my house stays in my house, so I suffered." I represent the daughter of multiple PAST generations of dysfunction and abuse but THAT STOPS HERE! Everything I needed and needed to hear.