Empowerment: Genuine Comraderie

In lieu of International Women's Day (March 8th), we have a lot of things to be thankful  for and many monumental achievements to celebrate. It has been and still is a challenging and heartfelt road to travel towards universal full equality for women. We as women have supported each other to prevail through times where women were only looked upon as the property of men and socially and culturally unfairly confined to domesticity. We united and empowered each other through the Industrial Revolution to gain and maintain equal rights as men, as a normative standard and not just out of timely necessity. In current times, we strive forward to break all corporate "glass ceilings" and to move beyond all boundaries put in place to beset us.

There is no apprehension or concern in that we will relentlessly come together to make progressive movement in annihilating all social, economic and political inequality. My thought pattern and wonderment is in the area of our daily social discourse and personal interaction with each other. There are times that I am left speechless after encountering  other women due to the lack of camaraderie amongst us, when not gathering based on an international, national, or local woman suffrage cause, but just for socializing purposes.

There is a hidden cost that often comes with bearing the cross of fighting against injustices, women, African Americans, Jews are among the groups that know this cost all too well. In the midst of the humane war certain key virtues are attacked, stripped or made recessive whilst staying the necessary course to ensure resilience and victory. It is necessary to empower, but alongside the act of empowerment we must not stray far away from the intrinsic traits that make up the essence of women; our innate ability to nurture, care, understand, display our candid and open expressiveness towards one another and all other beings. My question then is, in the midst of empowering each other have we forgotten to laugh, seek to understand, confide, respect, and admonish one another. For as the poem "Sisterhood" states if we suffice to be genuinely friendly, our genuine unity is a social and cultural remedy that will only gregariously aid in all other causes.

'Sisterhood' | Life In Color (Excerpt)

Sisterhood 

Sister 

Sister 

Sisterhood 

Sister 

Sisters 

What’s good? 

Sister 

Sistah’s 

Where is the sisterhood? 

Back on the Nile, 

We would honor each other 

Within our various tribes 

We use to, 

Create and place jewels 

On one another 

Braid each other’s hair 

We made it a priority 

To notice each beauty 

Whether we were colored 

Dark skin, brown or fair 

Now, we just roll our eyes 

Kiss our teeth, heckle and sigh 

When another woman walks by 

With confidence, sensuality 

And progression in her stride 

And I, for one, want to know why 

For it hurts on the inside 

To see such strong queens 

Let haughtiness, jealousy, envy 

And malice in between 

Our interwoven seam, 

A band once formed by our 

Spiritual bond and feminine unity 

Thus, with these few words I plead 

To stop the fickle bickering 

Cease the back biting 

Expose the hidden discord 

           I implore 

            For us,  

To continue the sisterhood that 

We naturally and graciously started 

And trample the divisive 

Schemes that impede, in, 

On our sincere comity 

We must not become settled in our enmity 

And allow indifferences to 

Stifle the sharing of our sisterly love 

Offer each other a shoulder to-- 

Cry on, and freely give words that 

Define and empower our worth 

We must be honest and direct with  

One another, to aid in our growth 

To all my beautiful sisters 

Can I make a decree? 

State the obvious, ultimate truth 

That I need all of you 

And you need me 

We need one another 

For reinforcement and support 

To fortify and nurture 

The strength of our families 

For when we suffice to be friendly 

Our genuine unity 

Is a social and cultural remedy 

Sharla R. Kornegay | SBKArtWorks, Life In Color © 2010

'No More Smalling Up Of Me'

My sister was the first person to introduce me to this poem by Carribean Poet Jean Wilson. It is a beautiful, truthful and sincerely empowering poem. Enjoy. 


No More Smalling Up Of Me
Jean Wilson

No more meekly saying ‘yes’
When my heart is screaming ‘no’
No more taming of my feelings
So my power won’t show
No more hiding my exuberance
From disapproving eyes
No more watering down myself
So my spirit won’t rise

No more ‘smalling up’ of me
Pretending I am not here
No more running from the music
And the spotlight’s glare
No more living in this prison
Barricaded by my fears
No more turning and retreating
In the face of new frontiers

Even as I am speaking
I am taking shape and form
Harnessing my powers
Like a gathering storm
There’s no obstacle so bold
As to dare stand in my way
I am taking back my life
And I am doing it today. 

A Global Epidemic: Missing Father's

"Bitter Sweets Nearing Beautiful," is a poem addressing the global epidemic of missing father's and the impact it has on their daughters, who eventually become women and the effectuate social, cultural patterns it has formed. Missing father's equals broken families and incomplete homes and does more often than not produce misguided little girls that grow into broken women, scarred by the absence of the immensely wanted and vitally needed strong protective essence of a fatherly male presence. I have encountered many women with this exact circumstance and as a result they're battling deep seated insecurities of feeling rejected by their father's, caught in harmful cyclic emotional and physical abusive relationships with the opposite sex and even at times disconnected from their children, specifically their sons.

Well, now that we've stated the effects how do we approach solving the problem. My grandmother always told me as I was growing up that, "prevention is better than cure," so in a perfect world people would thoughtfully and meaningfully consider whether they are willing to take on the responsibility of bringing a child into the world and make a solid choice to stay the course in loving and raising the child regardless of what turns their relationship takes, before they become intimate with each other.  Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world, or a world where higher levels of consciousness normally outwit and take precedence over thriving human passions. In addition, that solution would only help future little girls and would do nothing to aid those that have already been hurt by the experience. 

We can't control the world but we can mold our own perception and control the way we respond to whatever situations are birthed in our lives. I was one of those little girls who grew up without a father as well as a mother for the majority of my childhood. Contrariwise, to the lack in my upbringing at an early age, somewhere between twelve and thirteen I decided that I was not going to let life just happen to me, that regardless of my circumstances I have the power within my choices  and actions to create the life that I deserve. We all have this intrinsic power in us and the positive abstract power of the spirit is always offering times of opportunity to seize goodness out of life. Whether it's ignited from within, through awing at nature, or extended through another human hand.

If there are no given positives, positives can always be sought. Even if there are no  positive examples in your immediate family or surrounding environment; the world is vast, full of people, nature and even objects that we can pull positivity from. I didn't have my biological father to guide me throughout my life but there were so many guardian angels that I encountered along the way. I just had to be vigilant and open enough to receive the positive energy they offered to help fill the voids that were created by my past experiences; that made all the difference.

Bitter Sweets Nearing Beautiful

Bitter Sweets Nearing Beautiful

Father there’s so many

Words I want to say,

Many sleepless nights I pray

About each moment of my life

Impacted greatly, not having you

As an instrumental figure

In my life day by day,

How the loss of you

Heavy on my heart it weighs

I don’t want to sing

Another father less song

But I can feel the blues

Of heartache coming on strong

Another fairytale undone

Dead to me so early, too young

Visions of you blurred

Memories brief, breached

Jagged song verses hardly written

Sonata’s steeped,

In despondence are all I hum

Lacking memories of you

Confuse, my being

Shadows cast block

My ability in seeing

The validity of my healing

Myself,

My self-respect

Hard to recall or recollect

My beauty, being defined

And honored for what’s within

For these wolves in sheep clothing

Just want to take my purity

In Exchange

For the enjoyment of their sin

They know that you’re not around

No strong male presence

To be found

Tempts my thoughts, actions

Not to be sound

So they cast their illusions

All towards the making of a trick

Good ole papa slick

Says, “Come with me,

Don’t be bound, be free,

Let me stick, your rickety split

So you can feel again

“I know you’re numb

But you’ll forget the pain

Once you come,

With me.”

But in reality

You’ve just succumb

To another cycle,

Fallen idle

Fallen asleep

Stripped,

From the power of your innocence

Not awakened to your genius

To your majestic glory

To your quintessence

Your prowess virtue

Arise, out of the ashes

Oh frankincense and myrrh

Mend the broken pieces of her core

Rekindle, the unity between

You and her

Restore, the woman’s scent

The sweetness, which makes her

            Aroma

Savored and longed for

Rejuvenate, the essence

Of the princess persona

Adorn her again with

Emotion and vulnerability

To be safe and care free

Rebirth, the sacredness of her

           Womb

Where life originates

Where vital growth happens

To ensure safe human arrival

And prepares the soul for survival

Let her know that the absence of

The once, endeared,

Male physical hands

Of her father’s, uncle’s,

Grandfathers and brothers

Does not command

Or dictate the choices of her today’s

Nor, direct the events of her future

Oh my sisters, my mothers

My aunts, my grandmothers

We must stop the cycle

We must change the future today

With change in our actions

In our disposition

And the words we say

We are changed from being

Downtrodden femme fatale

Bitter and barely sweet

Into constant muses, goddesses

We’re lilies of the valley’s

Where roses and blossoms meet

And grow to know, their,

Invaluable incandescent worth

Beloveds,

I call to the winds

And to every corner

Of the earth

To disperse,

Fortitude

Shatter the poison

Of the historic cycles

And break the curse

Through declaration

In act and conversation

With celebration of her

Being placed back on her throne

And crowned, glorious,

Mother earth, producer of life

Sharla R. Kornegay | SBKArtWorks, Life In Color © 2010