“Hard times require furious dancing.” -Alice Walker
there’s a raging two-step in my feet. the djembe of my ancestors and the ring shout of enslaved Africans are percolating in my spirit.
this is a season of furious dancing.
as Black women’s bodies are continuously under attack by police, male sexual, and legislative violence, we must reclaim our time and our space. especially in our holy spaces.
see, many of our churches commit similar injustices against Sistas. YOU, young, Black woman, deserve to be nurtured, not used nor abused. if your church won’t ordain women, but you can pay all the tithes, fry all the chicken, clean all the toilets, design all the programs, print all the bulletins, usher all the people, but you’re still being called “Sister” instead of “Minister,” or “Evangelist” instead of “Pastor,” you might have to march your stiletto-clad feet right out of those church doors.
if we listen, God is always playing a bassline that pierces our spiritual ears and calls us to our higher selves. for me, as a Bay Area transplant, the trumpet of technology sounded. I am a part of the inaugural cohort of FTE’s DO GOOD X Startup Accelerator. DO GOOD X nurtures Christian social entrepreneurs who wish to do good in the world. next year, I am launching beautiful scars, an online platform that shifts Black women survivors of male sexual violence from silence to storytelling.
in this space as an entrepreneur, I have found that room to breathe...and be. if you need room to grow and breathe, Sis, trust God to provide the financial and social capital you need. there is too much wealth attached to the tech industry for Black preaching millennial Sistas to not have multiple slices of the pie. there are daily revelations of radical innovation and we cannot sit idly by as white, wealthy, capitalist men gain more while we acquire less.
my sistas’ gardens 2.0 (a new ideation of the original column named in honor of Alice Walker’s In Search of Our Mother’s Garden’s), centers ministry for the Black millennial woman preacher with a heavy emphasis on entrepreneurship, innovation, and technology.
Black women are the driving force of change. We pray with our feet. We preach good news to the poor. We set the captives free. just as our foremothers did. just as our elders do. just as those coming behind us shall.
this is a season of furious dancing. and radical-truthelling. as a preacher, God has called me to bear a prophetic witness. as a poet, I am charged with speaking out against oppressive powers and structures. as an entrepreneur, I am challenged to disrupt the capitalist arena with a radical commitment to social enterprise.
in this season, I invite you to dance with God--the ultimate partner and co-Creator. dance with your pen. dance with your vote. and, above all, dance in tune with the heartbeat of God.
the Spirit is waiting--and asking, “may I have this dance?”