Reflections on Blackness

I didn’t realize that I almost missed African American HISTORY MONTH!!! I just want to recognize some of the people that have gone before me to pave the way for me today.

Thanks Ancestors for your strength through all the hardships of slavery, colonization, segregation, and institutional racism. I am not just talking about African Americans but Africans all over the Diaspora. This includes my brothers and sisters who were slaves in the Caribbean, Africa, Europe, Asia, South America, Canada, etc. I am very happy that we are all continuing to make great strides on this earth. On a more personal level I am proud of my family and loved ones for who they are and their desire to survive in a hateful and destructive world.

How does this apply to my Peace Corps service you might ask? Everyday I walk down the streets in Bulgaria I am reminded of my blackness. Just Friday a woman came into the office and pointed at me to question my place in Bulgaria. Ohh I am sorry, she didn’t point at me with her finger but with her pen. She completely ignored me as a human being and asked my colleague about my purposes in being here. I could chalk it up to her thinking I couldn’t understand her Bulgarian but that isnt the case because when I walked into the office I was speaking Bulgarian.

This woman was definitely fascinated by me because she stayed in the office for about 2 hours peeking over her newspaper to stare at me work. Once in a while she would interject comments to my colleague about the work I was doing. My site mate and I tried to engage her in a conversation but she was to busy staring at me to respond.


Below are a list of quotes that will either inspire you or enrage you! Enjoy!!!

Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.
Cecil Beaton

I am not ashamed of my grandparents for having been slaves. I am only ashamed of myself for having at one time being ashamed.
Ralph Ellison

Was it not enough punishment and suffering in history that we were uprooted and made helpless slaves not only in new colonial outposts but also domestically.
Robert Mugabe

I had reasoned this out in my mind, there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other.
Harriet Tubman (~1820-1913)

We will be ourselves and free, or die in the attempt. Alice Walker

Radical simply means “grasping things at the root.”- Angela Davis

Don’t question my strength in my blackness, reveal in it - Crystal Brown


Thinking about Istanbul specifically the volleyball team (I will explain in my next blog,
Crystal