What is normal to me....

I went to Oakland yesterday to have a sabbath and the entire time i was there i felt a sense of normality that i haven't felt since my time at Spelman/childhood. It made me wonder what it was that made me feel so normal. Part of it was walking the streets and seeing so many people who looked like me and thinking to myself "you aren't different". Part of me wants to cling to that desire to not want to be different, and blend in with everyone else. The desire for assimilation will always be the downfall of my people because it's a concept that is doomed for failure. The unredeemed side of this concept promotes self-hatred and intraracisim that causes us to repeat the cycle of racism and prejudices amongst ourselves. I however have fallen less and less into this desire and allowed my wisdom to cling to the truth that I do not belong to this world but to Jesus and by the worlds standards i will always be different or abnormal.

However, in this season of my life what is normal for me is to be in places where i can get my hair braided for a reasonable price (and not have to drive 30 mins to get there), where i can get soul food on one corner and go to a jazz restaurant on the other, where i see families of people who look like me, and where i can go to a community of believers and have conversations like how Michelle Obama is changing the stereotype of the Black Woman.

Normality is relative.....it changes with each perspective