Tag Archives: Faith

Right that Strong Black Woman Book

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As promised on Friday, today I begin posting excerpts from a draft of my book on the strong black woman. If you look over the course of my life, this book has been in the making since I was about 5. I began writing it, however, about 10 years ago. Over the decade there has been a host of articles, talk shows, lectures and books on this topic. Most recently, Sheri Parks published Fierce Angels: The Strong Black Woman in American Life and Culture and Hasani Pettiford published Why We Hate Black Women. While these books deal with stereotypes surrounding strong black women and even delve into areas of spirituality, neither offers a Christian worldview. My work does. If you have been following this blog, you know that I believe Jesus Christ is the author and finisher of my faith. So any conclusions that I come to about who I am have to be words based on what Jesus says. So from my book with the working title Destroying the Myth of the Strong Black Woman, I present to you a portion of the foreword:

    “Their strength is to sit still. Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come forever and ever. . .” Isaiah 30:7b-8.

When God tells you to do something, you better do it, even if the task is harsh; you think people won’t like you, that people will attack you. Such was the case with completing Destroying the Myth of the Strong Black Woman. I didn’t feel this way in the beginning. I first thought, “God gave me this book to help set black women free. This is going to be good. I and so many women I know have these issues. People need this book.” And hundreds of women and men I talked to and interviewed supported my thinking. So did one mainstream publisher whose only apprehension was backlash from the black community. A white editor wanted to know what the black community would feel about some of its dirty laundry being aired. This sentiment kept them from publishing my book. But now here I am, because when God tells you to do something, you better do it, even if the task is harsh, you think people won’t like you, that people will attack you.

So, this is a forewarning. You may think what I have written is harsh; you may not like me; you may even attack me. I can deal with that. What I can’t deal with is the repercussions of God showing me something so clearly, telling me to write it, and disobeying Him for fear of man. This book is my debt to my God who entrusted my limbs to deliver a message, one that is hard-hitting but redeeming for me. When I examined the history of my independence and pride in being a strong black woman I recognized little of my walk had been with God. . . .

More of my story from the book next time

Copyright 2006-2010 by Rhonda J. Smith

Pretty, Precious Gracie

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She had long hair, gray eyes, caramel brown skin, and a lisp, and I wanted to be just like her, Gracie, my babysitter, with the hippest bell bottoms that she wore to cover her Earth Shoes. I willed my hair longer, wished for gray eyes, was happy my skin looked like hers and pulled my regular pants below my waist so I, too, could have dragging pants. Gracie was pretty and sweet and smelled good too, like the first scent of flowers in spring. I added bacon to my grits with a sprinkle of pepper because this is how Gracie, 15 years my senior, ate her grits. Every chance I got my school-girl self became Gracie, my neighbor who watched me and my siblings from infancy until we could stay home alone. But even after she stopped sitting, I longed to be like her.

I wanted Greg, the only boyfriend I remember Gracie having until she met David, who is now her husband. Greg was a tall and thin chocolate brown honey with a huge Afro and sports car. He and Gracie would take me for rides, just rides; we wouldn’t go anywhere in particular. Gracie laughed and snuggled with Greg and I snickered in the backseat. Though she was into him, she was never loud or lewd, and Greg seemed to worship her. I wanted Greg to be my boyfriend. When I went on rides with them I pretended he was; I just allowed Gracie to sit in the front seat and snuggle. But with Gracie being pretty, smart and smiley and me sitting in the back sit, I knew I didn’t have a chance with Greg. Gracie found out she didn’t either, though. I remember her and my mom talking in hushed tones and Gracie shaking her head knowingly. I don’t know what happened, but I know Gracie knew that Greg wasn’t good for her. I never saw him with Gracie again.

After that she smiled a bit less for a while, but she didn’t stop. She never let anything stop her. Not an unstable family life. Not skipping college to work so she could live on her own. Not challenges in her own family. Whether job loss, house loss, or loved one loss, she has remained focused and hopeful. Though I first loved Gracie because she was pretty and smelled good, I began to love her more for her strength to make the hard decisions, to go forward when others would have walked away. This determination sprang from her human spirit but has been sustained by the Holy Spirit, who came to reside in her when she accepted Jesus Christ as her savior. Still I long to be like her, now because of her determination to please God, no matter what the cost. Janet “Gracie” Hector, with her sweet smiling saved self, is my lifetime shero.

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith

Identity Crisis

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A little more than a year ago my 7-year-old son, Joshua, had an identity crisis. He said the pretty ladies were white and he wanted to be white. Oh, you know my heart sunk. My son didn’t think his momma was pretty. He despised how his grandmothers, aunts and friends look. Blinking to hold back tears, catch my breath and move the lump from my throat, I asked him did he know what he was saying meant. I asked him did he know that he was saying that he didn’t think his momma was pretty. He thought for a second and then said, “Yes. The pretty ladies are white. You don’t have clothes like the ladies at the casino.”

Joshua, 7 years old

I couldn’t hear what Joshua was trying to say. I saw little children picking the white baby doll over the black baby doll. I thought, “How could this happen? He has an Afrocentric mother, parents who love him and affirm his blackness. He’s around positive and progressive black people. He owns and reads books with black images. And he doesn’t watch that much TV. How could a baby like mine say he wanted to be white?” And I felt like a failure. I hadn’t instilled cultural pride into my child and now he was telling me so. After the nanosecond of these thoughts flooding my mind I thought to ask him WHY he wanted to be white. He reasoned: “All the white people wear nice clothes. The black children on TV don’t have food and clothes and hell is dark. I want us to be white.”

With his one hour of television a week, which included pleas to help poor children in Africa, casino billboards with fancy dressed white people, and lessons on salvation, Joshua had ascertained that all things white must be good and all things black must be bad, and he didn’t want any of us to have any part of anything bad. And though what he was saying revealed a bad situation, I was relieved. At 6, my son was a critical thinker and he wanted what he perceived to be the best for him and his family. Now the task was to teach him about propaganda meant to entice and make him feel less than others.

I thought I would deluge him with the history of black oppression at the hands of whites, saturate my home with more Afrocentric images, become involved in former activities where he would see me dressed in formal clothes and be around those I knew who flaunted their money and status. But as a strong black woman in recovery who is healing from racial and social pride, I knew these were bad ideas. They would perpetuate in Joshua what I was trying to get rid of in me. So I did what I should have done in the first place: pray.

In the middle of the night, Proverbs 6:25 came to my mind and I knew God was giving me the answer to help my son and others who may be competitive to the point of being covetous. “Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eyelids.” This ‘her’ was the ‘strange woman’ in verse 24 and though the strange woman here is interpreted whore, the Hebrew word also means “foreign; someone not like you.” And the word lust is the same Hebrew word for covet. Joshua loves the Bible and constantly looks for applications in his life. I knew we needed to revisit The 10 Commandments, specifically “Thou shalt not covet” because God was saying at the root of Joshua’s identity crisis was an issue with covetousness. Joshua was coveting his neighbor’s skin color and possessions, and I was convinced that Joshua would get this. He did.

On his own, Joshua said, “I’m telling God, ‘I know you gave me this skin color, but I don’t want it. I want white skin.” Then he looked embarrassed and curious, like he had just been scolded and knew what the consequences would be if he didn’t stop coveting. Joshua learned the lesson immediately and there has been no more talk about wanting to be white. This lesson, along with teaching that God created ‘all nations of men,’ has helped Joshua understand that his being black was no accident but an intentional incident, and because of that he has no reason to covet. Joshua is my hero because he took the word of God and immediately applied it to his life. Also, Joshua now is quite proud to be black, constantly expressing awe and joy when discovering blacks’ accomplishments. I’m just working on his ability to love all the nations of people God has created and not seek to return hate for hate. As we reflect on the state of black people during this Black History Month, I think Joshua’s lessons are good for us all.

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith

We Shall Overcome Revisited

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It was February 1978 and I was watching newsreels of the Civil Rights Movement in my primary school. At 9, my heart was saddened seeing thunderous water hose and hate-filled blows given to blacks relentless in their fight for freedom. The repeated images moved my heart from sad to mad that one group of people devalued another so much that they sought to keep them down by beating them down. And then I got angry because I was tired of singing “We Shall Overcome.” I remember thinking, “But they didn’t overcome. That song didn’t work. Can we sing a new song? One that works?”

Even though these thoughts flowed freely in my mind, I didn’t know how to verbalize them, at least not in a respectful way to Mrs. Clark, my pretty black teacher who carved confidence in us; to Mrs. Kraus, my Jewish music teacher who cultivated cultural sensitivity in us; or Mr. Mack, my white principal who was kind to all us kids in a non-patronizing way. So at 9, I had my own protest by refusing to sing “We Shall Overcome” another time. Not when Mrs. Kraus prompted us to join in with the armed-clutch crowd rocking back and forth on the newsreel, not in church after the pastor asked us to have a silent moment, and not during any other program looking back on the Civil Right Movement. That is not until last night during a live performance of jazz bassist Christian McBride’s The Movement Revisited: A Jazz Opus in Detroit.

Christian McBride


A lover of jazz and gospel music, McBride masterfully blended two of my favorite genres with a jazz orchestra and a church choir and infused the music with narrations of speeches to commemorate the lives of civil rights icons Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Rosa Parks and Muhammad Ali. To add to that, one of my sheroes, Sonia Sanchez, read the part of Rosa Parks. I feasted on great words and music that reverberated my being. The Second Ebenezer Majestic Voices opened by singing “This May Be My Last Time” as jazz rifts infiltrated the vocal proclamation. Second, an 18-year-old high school student eloquently read Dr. King’s opening address to the 1964 Berlin Jazz Festival:

“Jazz speaks for life. Much of the power of our Freedom Movement in the United States has come from this music. It has strengthened us with its sweet rhythms when courage began to fail. It has calmed us with its rich harmonies when spirits were down.”

When I heard King’s statement about jazz and considered how it and some gospel songs make me feel like I can move mountains, I knew why the freedom fighters kept singing “We Shall Overcome.” This was a song of faith, declaring that even if they didn’t see come to pass what they were fighting for, they would continue to fight so that following generations could be free to be who God created them to be. So, third, when the Detroit church choir sang an upbeat “We Shall Overcome” with the jazz infusion, I proudly sang along knowing the power of the song and how it in fact had worked.

I had a glorious night, and was glad Christian McBride and the Detroit International Jazz Festival had brought this opus to Detroit. I’ve always liked McBride, but now he is one of my heroes for using the amazing gift of musical composition that God has given him to inspire us all to continue to fight for human rights.

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith

The Actions of Babes

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If you pay close attention to children, you can see some spiritual lessons at work. This happened the other day when I was helping my 2-year-old son Nathaniel take off his shirt. I was pulling it up to pull it off, but right when I got to the bridge of his nose, he began to panic. Apparently I wasn’t going fast enough for him so to counter his anxiety he began to pull the shirt down to keep it on. I had to tell him—scream almost so he could hear me above his cries, to let me take his shirt off my way, for him to take his hands off, so that he would be okay and that we would meet the goal of his shirt coming off.

Seeing Nathaniel at work against me made me think of how we often do with God. We ask for His help, and though we may see progress, we begin to panic because we are not meeting our goal as fast as we think we should. We get involved, working against what God is trying to do and end up doing opposite of what He intends to do, working against God and our goal.

I encourage you today: Let God be God and let Him work for you the way He wants to. Remember, when we get our grubby hands involved there will definitely be a mess (Isaiah 64:6). But when God is at work, we have perfection, and when we trust Him to do what He does, He will keep us safe and we will reach our goal (Psalm 18:30).

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith