Watch Sha'Condria perform her poem "To All the Little Black Girls With Big Names."
I still remember the first time I came across this video on Facebook. I must have watched it at least five times in a row. Each time I watched Sha'Condria recite her poem about little girls with with BIG names, I was filled with her passion.
This poem did a lot for me and proved Sha'Condria's success and achievement as an artist. Her art reached me and moved me, opening my mind to possibilities and awakening my senses with electricity that ran through my veins, turning on my brain. When I say "turning on my brain," I'm referring to that moment when the brain emerges from its dormant state of mind. When one opens the door of a dark room, sun beams and wind rush into the room, and the possibilities seem endless.
The first time I watched this video, I was in my freshman year of college. I shared the video three times on my Facebook timeline because I believed that this video should be viewed by all English-speaking North Americans, for various reasons.
I have recently been learning about communication and language. There are two different ways to view communication:
1. Communication as a constitutive — the idea that communication creates reality.
2. Communication as representation — the idea that communication is a tool we can use to represent things and thoughts.
Since I have been discussing and thinking about this idea constantly lately, the two ideas begin to swirl together like a marble pound cake.
So does what we communicate equal reality?
Or is communication simply a tool that we can use?
Does communication create and shape our realities? If so, does that contribute to who we are and who we become? Will the world view us as what communication has created? Think about Sha'Condria's poem. A reality has been created for anyone who "carries the shame of having a ghetto ass name" (To All the Little Girls with Big Names). Imagine that a name you had absolutely no say in choosing could create so many obstacles for a girl to jump over and live past, simply because the reality that has been created dictates it!
Think about when Sha'Condria talks about the struggle she has faced when having to write her name on applications and business cards. Did her name create a certain reality that she had to live in?
Consider the poem below:
Pe’Tehn Raighn-Kem recites "Hey, Black Child" by Countee Cullen.
Was Pe'-Tehn also creating a reality by memorizing and reciting Hey, Black Child by Countee Cullen? Did her words constantly emphasizing the word CAN instead of CAN'T create a reality for her and for her audience?
This relates to each and every one of us! What we hear, what we say, what others say and what we see becomes reality. There are hundreds and thousands of examples of this. Everywhere you look, you can see examples of this.
How does communication creating realities create identities create us/you/me?
Communication becomes reality.
So be yourself. If you are living in a fake reality, go out there and change it!
Be real when you talk, because it matters.
For further thinking, consider the following video: "Latina Actors Deserve Better Representation."
https://www.wearemitu.com/mitu-voice/how-much-long...
Dedicated to my Professor and mentor Volrick Higgs, who is always curious about words, people, reality and meaning.
