#keepit

Keep your admiration

Keep your likes on social media

Keep your corporate job

Keep your education system which degrades

creativity and calls me impractical

Keep your "African" prints

Keep your roots

Keep your culture

Keep your religion

Keep your philosophy and superstition

I come from a people that cannot be killed, sprung up from deep cuts and wounds, never expected to, yet proceeded to heal.

descendant of a God who is creative, innovative, divine.

Keep your relaxer and the bleach for the skin

Keep your too fat, keep your too thin

Keep your comment

Keep your opinion

I don't NEED your approval

Keep your recommendations

Keep your hard to get appreciation

My culture is God, not the God of various denominations ideas and traditions outrageous beliefs man-made superstitions

but the God of the bible who created the light who exists and persists no matter what you like.

my culture is the intelligence of Martin Luther king and Malcolm X

My culture is the strength of a woman who loves herself, who walks in dignity, who builds her community. My culture is the brilliance of rosa parks and sistah souljah... artists like Dorothy dandridge and Josephine baker.

My culture is Tupac's dear mama. it is his advancement. It is his decision to do better, to have better, and help somebody else do the same. It's artists like chance the rapper taking the hand he lent.

My culture is TLC warning about chasing waterfalls.

My culture is Yara Shahidi and Malia Obama at Harvard university. Yes, Howard and Morehouse are ivy league schools, but they can choose Harvard because of Ruby Bridges.

My culture is keeping on and keeping on and making right that which is wrong. it is driving out hate with love. It is self love. It is righteousness.

do not tell me I need to find the culture my people once had look into a continent, find a country, a city? a village? and sew back pieces of what I might have known.

Don't tell me I should conform to your culture.

You can miss me with it.