A Look in Shadows.

2 Black women definitively grounded in their African roots.

As I see it:

We, African Americans, lock ourselves into our ancestry by hair too late in the long history of our relationship with Europeans. It is not spiritual paths African Americans, for the most part, follow; it is fashion. Locked away in our relationship with Euro-Americans is a past in our present that senses where to place one's self in their estimation of ourselves, and who we are as a people.

Rastafarians made stands in the early 20th century in Jamaica because they'd gone home through scripture and culture back to Africa as their Mother's land. That spiritual power preceded the fashion of locking kinky hair during a time when the dreadlocks made the statements conformity could not make! The dreadlocks of the true Rastas, and the holy people in Black lands is far away from the conformity Black Americans embody and deny in one glance towards white Americans for acceptance.

Having a job depends upon their understanding and acceptance of our culture. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 6/30/18

the Distance between Needs.

5 young Black women with Faith Coffield's baby in the center, and Zaria Fortson-Linton on the far right. photo by Roland Dawson (2018). A question to them: "Do they understand the depth of the meaning of their breasts, and connections to their long ago?" 

Faint Memory of Times Before Them. 

There is the faint memory of the times before the whites landed on the African coasts, and demeaned the sacredness of the breasts and diminished its sacred power in the cultures that operated at this level of being Human. It is a significant memory. American women are steeped in European hate based beliefs we can place beneath the dogma of Puritanism. It is a real struggle for women trying to gain equality when they are of the African Diaspora because this struggle, for them, is the conflict of being an African woman and understanding being equal is not a goal in a matriarchal society. What is meant is in the question: "Do Black women in our Diaspora need to try regain what was the core of our collective cultures in Africa in sympathy, or remain in ignorance of white women's cultural trauma and how it has always worked against African women?". . .

Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories
July 5, 2018

I Get It!

Former First Lady Barbara Bush was interviewed and expressed how she could not comprehend how women could have voted for Donald Trump!

I get it. One has to take a deep look into the spirit and the thinking of white Americans to understand something as incomprehensible as this! It is baffling, but we Colored folks have seen these things over and over again. In the last centuries we have watched in horror as white families gathered to watch brutal tortures and hangings of Black men. Upper class White women during slavery had to accept a double standard in their marriages. They had to live with a husband who fathered slave children. It stirred dark emotions. In retaliation, white women became known for their cruelty torturing their slaves.

Something turned within European women in their relationship with their men from Europe forward. They need to unearth these gross contradictions. They live in denial, gain strength in cruel men, and satisfy something incomprehensible voting against their best interest in God's name! In truth, I don't understand it. I know it. Unlike Mrs. Bush I won't act like I am ignorant of this history or oblivious of the need to heal their souls! - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 4/11/18

1930's a Negro boy tied to a pick axe in a forced labor camp in Texas.

Black FACE!

Amara La Negra Shuts Down Trolls Saying She’s In Blackface

"Amara La Negra is both black and Latina, a concept many online trolls can’t quite seem to grasp.

The Miami-born Dominican singer first addressed social media comments that she is donning blackface during a live interview with The Shade Room...

But it seems the issue didn’t end there. On Thursday, the singer once again addressed accusations that she wears blackface by posting an adorable throwback video of herself participating in a beauty pageant when she was a child.

“Well Yea I guess I was Born in a ‘Black Face Body!,’” Amara wrote in the Instagram caption for the video. “Its funny that I even have to go through this and show you baby pictures or videos to prove to blogs and people on social media that my skin color is not airbrushed or spray tanned nor do I take melanin shots to be black!”' 

Amara La Negra is a Miami-born Dominican singer.

"Being an Afro-Latina in the Latin market is particularly difficult, because you essentially have to work twice as hard to prove yourself. As much as people want to say that racism is over and it doesn’t exist, it does, especially in the Latin market. When they talk about a Latina, they talk about Sofia Vergara or Jennifer Lopez, Shakira even. But not anyone who looks like me, and I’m 100 percent Latina.

I’ve been in novelas, but the roles that are carved out for us are more often than not stereotypical. You’re a slave, a drug addict, a gangster, or a murderer — those kind of roles. It’s tough to land a serious role. And anytime I say stuff like this, people are in shock. Like they can’t believe I just said racism is alive or something. Listen, I can only speak from my own personal experience.

One of the reasons I’m so rebellious and I wear my hair from my head attached to my body, is because for many years I was told this bullshit lie that in order to be beautiful, I had to have straight hair, because my hair was too “unmanageable.” Hello! I’m black. Yes, I’m going to have nappy and kinky hair. But that’s part of what makes me beautiful. And it took me years to know and realize that. I’m straightening and burning my hair for what? To please who? I was doing it to try and fit into society." ~ Amara La Negra 

African Introspectives

Police brutality by Jamaul Johnson is titled Change. 

Sudanese man by Galal Yousif Goly, an introspective of silence and space.

(2015)

look at US!

Wonders over 40

Old married couple's elegance and strength.

1st Black British policeman, PC Norwell Gumbs (later Norwell Roberts) directing traffic in 1968.

Dancing. La danza de la Alegria por algo conseguido.

The Ebony Experience

Older woman's depth of face and character of face.

59 yrs, Donna Renee Preston, Contestant of More Magazine's

2011 Beauty Search'.

2 old women armed and strengthened by each other.

At the root of American culture...

dancer Chloe Arnold !!!!

dancer, pioneer ballerina, Janet Collins.

Janet Faye Collins, was one of the first African American dancers who paved the way for modern day classical dancers such as the ballerina Misty Copeland. 

dancers from back in the day

In the roots of American culture is the African, and the hundreds of the Red nations. Without us there is only mere brutality! - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories [November 16, 2017] 

What We Are: excellence!

NSU Spartan Marching Band in 2016 with Patria Whitley Waters (c.), and Rome Brandon Simms. (r.) up front!

photo RD Williams Photography Sept. 2016. 

.

NSU student, Patria Whitley Waters. She is beautiful this child's spirit, form and who she represents! Hope she fulfills the 'why' of her existence and outlives the doubt about a bright future!  photo by RD Williams. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 8/4/17 

Dr. Juanita Bynum sits as President of Juanita Bynum Ministries and CEO of Juanita Bynum Enterprises, with headquarters in New York City. She is a best selling author, and a lecturer.

WE DONT SHAKE WE SHIFT: teaching moment.....
after you have done all that you know to do and there is an interruption ..... THE FIRST THING YOU MUST DO.....

1. STAY CALM.... why?

Because many times we get frustrated and upset because all we can see is what is happening from a negative stand point. But in every negation situation there is a shift sitting within the walls of it. When things go wrong... 10 chances out of 10 The lord is trying to reveal something to you that you have never seen. So what do you do? You stay calm and wait for the revelation.

There is a God side to all that happens and when you have a God nature then your spirit adheres to and waits for what HE WILL SAY AND DO!!!!! This is why the enemy speaks so loud and his interruptions are so harsh because he is not being heard !!!! Think about it... when people have to scream and yell all the time it's because they have a fear of being heard !!! He is afraid of us now.... nobody that use to listen to his lies is listening anymore!!! So he has to speak this way!!! THE enemy has already spoken ..... he has caused the interruption ..... we have heard his voice...... now we wait to hear what the lord will say. He speaks in a still small voice ......remember when there is great change on the horizon the wind comes the thunder comes the lightening comes all as distractions to provoke fear!!!! But when God speaks he doesn't have to yell because our spirits are always attentive to His voice. BUMBLE BEES don't be discouraged .....

He is revealing a greater plan and a better way!!!!! I am confident in this!!!!! THIS IS NOT JUST A PAGE ...... THIS IS A MOVEMENT!!!!!!!!!!!! WE CAN NOT BE STOPPED!!!!!!!!#NOFEAR!! 

Dr. Juanita Bynum 

December 7, 2016