My Country

Country—a large area of land regarded as distinct from other areas, e.g. because of its natural boundaries or because it is inhabited by a specific group of people.

This week on this blog has been about country, my country, the United States of America. And I have particularly been focusing on the irreverence toward our leader and the contradictory ideas we use when relating to each other. I believe that the irreverence and the contradictions largely persist because the country was built on a shaky foundation. Now we see a lot of shaking going on in this country, to its literal foundation and the foundation of ideals upon which it was built. All this talk about country and its uneven foundation led me to think about the foundations that we as people build our personal lives upon. I started to examine my own foundation and what country I have built, so to speak.

What slabs did I lay and what country did I build? Where do I live and operate and how do I live and operate? Many of you know that I had, like so many successful black women, built a strong black woman country and I chose to proudly live there. I had laid the slabs of pride and self-reliance so my strong black woman country was easy to build and stood strong for a long time. Living in this country had me operating in concert with others who, for the most part, would help to further my agenda. Many have heard my story. If you haven’t, check out About Blog and the early blog posts (December 2008 & January 2009). I revisit my story now because the next series of posts in this blog will be excerpts from a draft of my book on the strong black woman and tell why I built this strong black woman country and how I found out I needed to tear down its foundation. I still need a book title though the working one is Destroying the Myth of the Strong Black Woman. The writings here, along with the ones on this blog, will be the basis for my soon to come book on the subject. They also serve as the catalyst for my new website, which is still titled Musings of a (Recovering) Strong Black Woman and will launch in late spring, early summer. The new site has expanded content, including contests, giveaways and a weekly challenge. Look for more to come on the new website real soon. For now, I want you to think about the personal country you have built. Do you like living there? Should you be working to dismantle the foundation and start again? I look forward to hearing your stories and sharing more of mine with you.

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith

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