Angelia Vernon Menchan

Angelia Vernon Menchan is an author, publisher and public speaker who owns two publishing companies, MAMM Productions and Honorable Menchan Media. Mrs. Menchan is also a Budget Officer and former Job Corps Counselor. To date she has published twenty-three books of her own work, both fiction and non-fiction and more than eighty ebook novellas on amazon.com. You can access her bibliography on www.amazon.com search words: Angelia Vernon Menchan




Contact information:
Website: http://acvermen.blogspot.com
Email: acvermen@yahoo.com
Phone numbers: 904 714 2272 904 303 2679

Thursday, March 8, 2007

Black Enough?

I wish someone would please explain to me what ‘Black Enough’ means…
Lately I have heard this bandied about in regards to Barack Obama…
Our first Black presidential candidate in years…
I am so confused by this…
I guess it would make sense if it were because of his lineage…
Having a Caucasian mother, but it doesn’t seem to be that…
His grasp of the English language…
His ability to show a love for education…
Family values…
Seems to be the things that make the brother…
Not ‘Black Enough’…
I hope to hell not…
Because those kinds of things…
Transcend color…
Or they should…
I can remember being a little Negro girl…growing up in…
Ocala, Florida…
I loved to read…write and could talk my butt off…and talk well…
I had been educated by family members and teachers…
Who taught me to speak properly…
Lord, the mess I heard…
“Stuck Up”
“Acting White”
“Proper Talking”…
Even as a child I didn’t listen to that mess…
I saw my penny brown face…in the mirror…
Looked around my hood and saw nothing but black faces…
I was as Black as anyone else…
Please…
Somebody better hurry up and tell me what ‘Black Enough’ is…
Otherwise, leave it alone…
Black is and should be as diverse as anything else…
Isn’t it and shouldn’t it be???

Angelia, acVernon Menchan

7 comments:

Gwyneth Bolton said...

Great post! Last time I checked we were not a monolithic people. Black folk come in all shades and hues, all ways and views... We have such a variety of experiences and cultures among African Americans alone. And when we add our brothers and sisters from the Continent and the rest of the Diaspora to the mix it really shows our wide range and varied interests. So folks shouldn't even fix their mouths to start that old retrogade "black is, black ain't" mess...

Angelia Vernon Menchan said...

Exactly...retrograde, that is the truest truth...

angelia

Shai said...

POWER-FUL!

MsJayy said...

It's a sad state of affairs. Other people say we're "too Black" & then some of us have the nerve to challenge who's "Black enough".

Angelia Vernon Menchan said...

THANKS Shai-

Ms. Jayy -
we limit ourselves when we buy into the madness...as always thanks for stopping by...

angelia

Lynn Emery said...

Excellent post and comments. I'm dismayed when folks who should know better even come up with this "Black Test" craziness.

Bianca said...

I never understood what that meant, "ain't black enuff". I wonder who thought of that phrase in the first place... or why stereotype other based upon our hue of browns, blacks, and yellows? Or the way we talk, walk, act, and play?

Acceptance of DIVERSITY is what people lacking in our society, espeically among our own.

Great post!