FIT TO BE TIED

 February 17, 2012 

"New York based Anowa Adjah is a fitness expert and dark skinned. The mention of her dark skin has importance on the lack of cultural interest in dark skin in any field. I didn't grow up in a color struck home. I learned about it reading, as a teenager, in the library. It shocked the senses to read about it, and it took my first wife's step-mother, Florine, to smack me in the face with it. Florine doted over my first child's light skin in comparison to her dark skinned grandchildren. It pissed me off, and gave me the courage to confront her. As big and mean as she was a man in his right man did not go up against her, but on this point I had to drive that spirit from my children's mind. Janvier, my first born, was not going to be subjugated to that energy I insisted.

The odd thing out in the open was Janvier's mother was dark skinned, and I had a secret wish our children would come out dark. It didn't happen. Well, I brushed that off easily. It wasn't deep enough a wish as the necessity to be a good parent presented itself to me!"

- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories
1.17.14