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Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.
Haban gani? What's the news?
It's time to light the second candle on the Kinara and ponder the second principle of the seven celebrated during Kwanzaa
Self Determination. This is a principle the Black trans community needs now more than ever, is definitely down with and needs to do all of the above as described in the sentence following the description of what Kujichagulia means.
We are in desperate need of defining ourselves. For far too long we have allowed others to define us and who we are as transpeople of African descent. Because of our lack of visibility, far too many of the negatives associated with trans people have been dropped in our laps.
We have had far too many African American preachers participate in the bashing of us to burnish their conservafool political credentials or line their pockets. We sadly have had Black cis women gay and straight doing so as well, Black gay men and others in the chocolate coated peanut gallery joining in the amen chorus of negativity aimed at African descended trans people.
That needs to end now. We are of and share the same African heritage, blood ties and history you do. We did not give that up when we transitioned. We still get called the n-word just like you do.
One of the things that we also need to do as transpeople of African descent is take bolder steps toward determining our destiny as the principle of Kujichagulia calls for us to do. We must immediately do a better job of defining who we are as trans African Americans, of naming ourselves, of creating FUBU institutions for ourselves inside and outside the African descended trans community that reflect our culture.
And we must do a better job in this decade and beyond of speaking for ourselves and determining our own political destiny. It is fairly obvious at this point in time that depending on others to do so in trans organizations with melanin free leadership just isn't working out for us African descended trans people.
Kujichagulia is something that we chocolate trans people need to be expeditiously working on both inside and in concert with our cis African brothers and sisters as well on a daily basis, and need to get busy on.
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