There’s a brown girl in the ring

🎶Girl show me your motion!🎶

I grew up an empowered brown girl.

I sat among girls, from various backgrounds, only, for 12 years of my life. I sang, and shouted and screamed and danced in safety for years. With one male security at the gate to protect hundreds of girls. {Sidebar: We will revisit the logics there another time, but it worked for the time.}

I played There’s a brown girl in the ring at school. I laughed and learned and got freedom to try new things, meet new people and be a brown girl in school. I also played at home. The clapping coordination of Moral posed some challenges to me when my grandmother taught me to play, but that never stopped me. Nor did my mother’s mercilessness in Monopoly. (Vengeance came when they invented Monopoly Deal)😅. I digress.

🎶There’s a brown girl in the ring.

Tralalalala

There’s a brown girl in the ring,

Tralalalalala

Brown girl in the ring,

Tralalalala

For she loves sugar and I love plum,

Plum, plum,

Girl show me your motion!🎶

Now imagine my surprise, when I realized the world wasn’t that excited about brown girls.

Well they were aesthetically. We are most loved for that. Being visually appealing.

But not empowered.

But nobody told me that! 😅

Currently not sure whether I’m happy they didn’t or not, or maybe they did and I paid them no mind. When that message of empowerment was shared, I bundled that up and tucked in away tight, as a foundation to my identity.

I didn’t see a world where women couldn’t, because I often saw the contrary. I saw women doing and being. I was often surrounded by women and seeing the potential of women. I would be inspired and encouraged. Whatever path that was possible, could be mine, and I got that as my foundation. That is one of my solid rocks.

I saw women thinking and planning. Surprising and documenting. So many photos taken to look back on as memories today. I saw women taking a little and making a lot. I saw women strong and beautiful, speaking up, enunciating, being eloquent, poised, warm and driven.

I saw brown women doing that, let me specify. I grew up among brown women doing that. So imagine my surprise, when I was ready to show my motion, cause I always had my own, that I started being told ‘NO!’😅

“Excuse!”

“I am unable to comprehend that which was uttered to me.”

Because what yuh mean NO?

Wait, why yuh mean NO?

Why don’t you want a world with empowered brown women? What does that cost you?
Because I would love for us to not just recognize our Forefathers but our Foremothers as well.
Fore-aunties, Fore-sisters, Fore-grannies, Fore-femalecousins, Fore-godmothers, Fore-teachers.
Fore women that they met along their way, that helped carry them too, guided them along their path, helped them carry the load. May they get some credit too. May we get some room too.

Maybe because we didn’t take the time to see them as brown girls, who ended up in wrestling rings, that fought too.
Maybe because women and domestic became synonymous, but the definition of domestic is tame.
Maybe because beyond the pain, that brown women inflicted on us, we couldn’t see their own, their cries for help.

There have been many brown girls in the ring, they tried. Some weren’t able to, and some didn’t bother.
But one fact is that all the brown women were once brown girls, and I’m sure there are some stories they could tell you.

So because I wanted to verify the lyrics of what I thought was just a game West Indians played as a 90s baby, I also stumbled upon this😅: