'for colored girls': one colored girl's perspective

i saw this most amazing movie twice this week, for colored girls. i know there are many who would think such a decision was not so good of one. well, that's their opinion. my hilarious friend pam said that my two tickets were $20.00 in missionary support that i could have given to her. she's a hot mess. i'm cool with my two tens going to the movie and supporting black film work.


i enjoyed seeing it twice and the second time observing some things that the first time i didn't catch: like that the building most of the colored girls lived in, the majority of the women lived on the 5th floor, a building with no elevators...five flights of steps, up and down, up and down...the rigor, struggle, labor of the walking, climbing up those steps everyday, to go back home, to leave home...a beautiful, beaten up metaphor for the up and down, labor-filled, pulse of push for many black women, in simply just living. it's a struggle to live, to fight, for the single mother, to be mama and daddy, comforter and provider...for the business professional dealing with racism and sexism, trying to find her place in this incredibly jacked-up world...for the hopeful woman just wanting a good black man for herself in the sea of statistics, doubts and dilemmas...and so much more. those five flights of steps spoke volumes to me. 


another thing i caught the second time i viewed the film is the bouquets of fresh flowers given to the lady in yellow (played by anika noni rose) and the lady in red (played by janet jacket). these 'fresh, real' flowers to me also serve as a powerful metaphor for the symbolic deaths that would soon be brought to both of these women by men in their lives. yellow flowers to yasmine, thought to represent a budding friendship only mask the deep depravity soon to implode her world, and the red roses to joanna, thought to represent a deep love from the man of her dreams only to cover the deep deception that would soon expose them and their hole-filled and crack-riddled marriage. hmm...'fresh, real, alive' flowers that could have just as well been fake, plastic, abrasive, cold imitations, for what they really represent is all those things and then some.


mmm....can you tell that i really enjoyed literature reviews, digging deep in bodies of literature and constructing papers in college and high school, ey? i sure did. i love thinking about and digging into what could be behind an author or director's intention in a body of work. makes the piece truly come to life because it gets to interact with the souls of people, their hearts, their minds, their questions, their struggles. and we learn as we ask the questions. 


there's a lot i'd like to say about this movie. i'm a little tired right now and my eyes are heavy at 2:25am, but what i do want to put out in words is that the stories of these colored girls who've considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf, but are moving instead to the end of their rainbows is this: each of us has a voice we've been given on this earth. our voices carry our pains, our joys, our celebrations, our heartaches. but my God, they are our voices.


there's much suffering in the voices of african american women. suffering at the hands of this world, suffering at the hands of our men, suffering at the hands of outright sin. and yet, we still survive, we still live, we still move forward. one. step. at. a. time. 


for me, as a colored girl, i know my gift of survival isn't tied up so much in my own ability and inner strength. it comes from Him. God made me a woman of color and as such, there's a history and an understanding of other stories of colored girls that i just automatically get. these are the stories i've been knowning, reading, hearing, understanding, grieving, cherishing from the griot experiences and literary thumbprints of storytelling aunties who created works of fiction based on works of real life, real struggle, like toni's 'song of solomon' and the pain of hagar, to her 'bluest eye' and the deep violations of pecola, to gloria's 'women of brewster place' and the overwhelming weight of their lives, plus zora's 'their eyes were watching God' and the incredible losses of janie.


the tragedies, the horrors, the pains of colored girls are a part of our stories, our histories. for what reason, i don't know. what i do know is that we live in a sick, fallen and deeply destructive world full of people who are reflection of the moral depravity around them and in them. and in such a contaminated place, the horrors and deep wounds of domestic violence, rape, abortion, murder, infidelity, reckless sexual behavior, infertility, shattered dreams, incest, silence and more are woven into the sin that we all share. we share it, we give it, we get it, we are broken by it, we are immersed in it. the sin that so easily ensnares...us, others, all of us. we are sinned against. we sin against others.


what is left of us? who can hear the voices of the broken, the fallen, the hopeless, the sinner-victim and the victim-sinner? who hears the voice of the colored girls who've considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf? i know that He hears. He hears and He responds, tenderly, lovingly, powerfully, strongly. we were made for more, we were made to know Him, be made complete through him and changed by His love. have you heard that He makes all things new? well, He does. and His love never stops, never quits, never ceases to keep on redeeming, keep on restoring, keep on renewing, keep on replenishing, keep on reconciling each of us that would hear His voice, submit to His love and be healed by all that He has to offer to destroy that what has taken the life out of us. He makes all things new and He gives live in the place of hole that death, disappointment and despair desire to dwell. especially for colored girls, every girl, because we are His ultimately, fully, solely, completely, His daughters. and He cares. He loves. He cherishes. and He makes all things new. 


He is love.
and His name is God.
Everlasting.
The only true and living.
Almighty.
Eternal.
God.
and He's constantly loving and pouring out hope to those looking to a rainbow that won't ever be enuf, even when they get to the end of their rainbows...because there's so much more, in Him, through Him, because of Him. look beyond the rainbow. see the One who made it. meet the One who made it. He's waiting, waiting, for you.


~ m