Tag Archives: postaweek2011

Race and Hair: Do You Wear Your Hair Natural?

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Appreciating Our Natural Hair

I am so happy to soon be witnessing a beautiful example of unity in diversity as demonstrated in my niece’s upcoming nuptials.   I was heartened by the unique respect for diversity that she and her fiance both live and breathe.  He is Indian and Hindu; she is Christian and African-American.  Yes, this is the same couple that is donating their wedding gifts to charity.  So it’s not their diversity alone that make them special, but their character.  I sat in awe at a recent dinner as my niece’s fiance expressed his knowledge of the plight of African American’s in history, his love for the natural texture of my niece’s hair, and his love and respect for both my niece and sister.

He was the one she explained that encouraged her to “go back natural.” She commented that while “going natural” that she had more challenges with people from within our own culture than from the outside.

What Does Hair Mean to You?

Last month I spoke to an audience in Florida at an event organized by 100 Concerned Black Women and the topic of hair came up.  My co-presenter Iris Cooper had cut off her hair and a lady in the audience who self reportedly had worn wigs most of her life challenged why she did it.  The next day the older lady came to a followup session dawning her own hair.  She recounted how freeing it was.  She somehow had felt she needed validation, permission, and acceptance to free herself.  She explained how all her life she was called ugly because of her short hair.  And, now there is another trend, cutting off our hair that we’ve taken so long to grow and  letting go of what “long hair” means.  How do you feel about cutting your hair off?   It appears that we’ve still got a lot of work to do before we get to the point that we realize that we don’t all have to look the same and can see our own naturalness as beautiful.  What does your hair mean to you? Does it represent beauty, culture, image, or identity.  Is it your crown or crowning glory?  Please comment and share “your hair story.”

I’m Barbara Talley, the poet who speaks and inspires.  To find out more about me check out: What Does Barbara Do? or visit  my website.

Race and Marriage: The Final Frontier

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Baha’ullah writes, ” Glory not that you love your country, but that you love your kind for the earth is one country and mankind its citizens.” 

So many people now of late are speaking of assimilation (melting pot) as the only way to live together in harmony.  Instead of welcoming diversity and learning about it, far too many fear what is different and seek to subjugate or annihilate that which they refuse to try to understand.  The same sun warms us all.  The same light gives us vision. The same red blood runs through our veins.  We truly are one people living on one planet and our strength is in our vision of seeing and acknowledging our unity and our diversity.  That will probably happen when we finally learn that there is only one human race and allow it to play out in our language, conversations, and beliefs.

We Must Create a New Language of Oneness

We’ve got to get rid of terms like “race” , “inter-racial” and “mixed” and create a new language of oneness.  Science has already proved that we are one human race and the “divisive terms of races as we live them now” are not real.  Many people profess to believe in equality and oneness, until it comes to marriage.  Perhaps marriage is the final frontier to traverse to prove to the skeptics, doubters, and racists, that in reality we are all the same specie. What do you think?  How do you view marriages between people of different ethnicities?  Would you marry someone of a different ethnicity, color, or religion than you?  What about if it were your children?  Since there is ONLY ONE HUMAN race, how do you feel about getting rid of man-made, divisive, and erroneous terms?  And what are your suggestions for bringing about the oneness and conciliation that our world is literally dying for lack of?

I’m Barbara Talley, the poet who speaks and inspires.  To find out more about me check out: What Does Barbara Do? or visit  my website.

We Don’t Want Any Wedding Gifts

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Last night I had dinner with two of my sisters, my niece and her fiance.  Both my niece and her fiance are lawyers that have graduated from Georgetown.  They are both such unique young people, so much so that I awoke this morning and had to take some time to reflect on my thoughts especially their request to not give them any wedding gifts, but to instead give the money to charity.  And, they are not wealthy.  They are just starting out, have very few material trappings, and their share of college loans to repay and yet their thoughts are not on themselves but on the less fortunate.  In a sea of materialism,  and “me” mentality, they did NOT want gifts.  They wanted a simple ceremony so that their friends and family from around the world could share in their union.  And if it weren’t for respecting families and traditions, they wouldn’t have done a big wedding at all.  If the future has more young folks like them, then we have a bright future ahead of us indeed.

I’m Barbara Talley, the poet who speaks and inspires.  To find out more about me check out: What Does Barbara Do? or visit  my website.

Memorial Day: Honoring, Respecting, and Valuing ALL Life

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How can we befittingly pay tribute to those we wish to memorialize?

I think we best honor the dead when we truly appreciate, respect, and value ALL LIFE!  Perhaps we can all agree on the universal benefit of focusing on the value of all human life, whether it is a fetus or elderly, able or disabled, black or white, rich or poor, homeless or decadently housed, on foreign or American soil, whether Christian or Moslem, Buddhist or Bahá’í, gay or straight, male or female, employed or unemployed, sick or healthy, or famous or ordinary.   Diverse people remember, honor, and celebrate the dead in different ways.  Some somberly mourn their losses in rituals and visits to cemeteries, while others celebrate the life of the deceased by focusing on and valuing and appreciating the lives of the deceased.   What can you learn from the lives of those who are now on the other side of the sod?  What do you choose to remember?

Memorial Day offers an opportunity and  occasion to:

1. Stop and reflect on the value of every human life.

2. Examine the roles we individually and collectively play to make a difference during our own brief sojourn here.

3. Remember what is worth remembering about those who have passed on.

The ones we memorialize may be military, ancestors, friends, family members, religious figures, or someone totally unrelated, but whose lives and deaths have contributed positively to our understanding, opportunities, and freedoms.   It is an opportunity to learn from the past so that our lives will be more meaningful.

A lot of lives have been silenced in our history because of their diversity or beliefs and in the recent earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and wars. The suffering and pain continue long after the media has turned its attention to the next disaster or sensation.  Let’s not forget them.  What can you do to ease the suffering, change a life, and raise the esteem of the hopeless?  Remember, it is better to light one candle than to continually curse the darkness.  This memorial day, who will you light a candle for?

I’m Barbara Talley, the poet who speaks and inspires.  To find out more about me check out: What Does Barbara Do? or visit  my website.

Memorial Day: Befittingly Remembering

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 Who has passed on in your history, in the past few years, or even since the last Memorial Day?

Memorial Day is not only a time to remember deaths, but more importantly a time for us to remember the lives and contributions of those that have served, sacrificed, or meaningfully touched our lives and passed on.

If you truly valued the life of someone now departed, stop right now, write down their names, say a prayer for them, and REMEMBER them befittingly. What lessons can be savored, internalized, and used as a guide to make us better humans, employees, friends, spouses, students, neighbors, citizens, parents, children, and stewards of this beautiful planet?

Take a lesson from Sharon Parker of ROASA, Remembering Our Ancestors Synergistic Association who pulled together a local community to repair a leaking roof on the home of an elderly couple’s home or Judith Clark of Women Who Care Ministries whose non-profit brings together young and old volunteers who stand out in the scorching hot sun or freezing snow to collect food to feed hungry children.  And, remember those who are not traditionally remembered.  Remember the Buffalo Soldiers and women who have served our country.

Wikipedia defines a memorial as, “an object which serves as a focus for memory of something, usually a person (who has died) or an event.”  The key words for me are “a focus for memory of something.”Let’s reflect on the old adage, “If we don’t learn from the past, we are condemned to repeat it!”   Let’s not forget the true meaning of the day.  Part 3: Honoring Respecting, and Valuing ALL Life

I’m Barbara Talley, the poet who speaks and inspires.  To find out more about me check out: What Does Barbara Do? or visit  my website.