Silent No More!

Don't be silent!
None of us!
White folks!
Brown folks!
Yellow folks!
But ESPECIALLY Black folks!


None of us can be silent in the face of blatant racism and discrimination no matter who's dishing it out...


Stop calling us people of color and lumping us in some category as though we are comrades or have shared some experience or allegiance to one another. There is nothing further from the truth!


America, you CANNOT address your ills toward nor cancel your debt owed Black Americans by heaping opportunities on white women or others with whom we just happen to share melanin. Skin tone and/or gender is mostly where our sharing or commonalities end...


Black folks are being made more and more peripheral with every passing day as America soothes her conscious avoiding us and any real discussion of race or disruption of racism in her use of terms like diversity and people of color.


Sadly, there is an expectation that Black folks become complicit in the oppression of us when we are relegated to remain silent as our blue print for civil rights is being strategically and systematically employed to exclude or remove us from the table we shed blood to prepare and at which we graciously offered seating to these others who now exploit us and our gains.


It is especially insulting, hurtful if you will, in this time of exaggerated commitment to diversity and inclusion, which was emboldened after the murder of George Floyd. Even now, we are being excluded...

I am Black! Unapologetically and proudly Black. I am NOT BiPOC or any other kind of person of color category that has now been established or decided for me.


My name is Helen Higginbotham and I AM a proud Black Woman! Call me by my name and leave me in my skin when you speak of me. I am quite comfortable there. Let calling me Black roll off your lips until you, too, are comfortable there.


I wear my skin like the badge of honor it is. Don't water me down or dilute my presence in a sea of other faces that just happen to have the blessing of melanin too. I am NOT a "colored person". My elders made that clear in the 60s so don't back door return me to that distinction.


I am Black and wouldn't trade it for ANY other skin color in the world. So say it America and in the spirit of the late Godfather of Soul, James Brown, say it out loud! Black folks are Black and we are proud! We are NOT people of color to be confused or aligned with others so that you can ignore and continue to mistreat and disrespect us...


We will be silent no more, no matter who it makes uncomfortable. Our comfort matters too.


We reclaim the right not to be silent as others co-opt our dream.


We are Black folks and we WILL be speaking up and calling folks out as is necessary and by any means necessary...


Miss Higgi Says, We Will Be Silent No More!