“No matter what you do to us, you could never take my joy away from me.”
In honor of Black Women’s History events, the film screening in my mother’s garden was organized. Here is a recap!
The film was a healing experience but also uncomfortable. Why uncomfortable? In order to truly heal, you must deal with the root cause. That requires you to dig deep, and often, it will involve traversing the aspects of life that we work so hard to hide.
Black women from different parts of the world such as Africa, the Caribbean, and the US, without disregarding their multifaceted and intersectional identities, came together to speak on the gift of motherhood and having older black women around to shape their worldviews while at home.
They speak of the traumas matrilineage holds and, most importantly, the power that they hold in their households in a world where “you are not applauded until you do something for someone else.” This is a reality most black women face and even take pride in because “it ‘s the way it has always been.” One way or another, this plays into the feeling that they do not deserve rest until x, y, and z are done.
Throughout the film, women recount the values of love that were shown to them even when it was disguised in toughness: “Love is a verb, and I show it to you.”
A gentle reminder to all the beautiful women racialized as black: “You are not a machine. Rest is reparation”
Whatever you are doing this week, I hope you have a wonderful one.
~Holiness Kerandi ‘26