I am writing this to you because I won't be there on your first day of school

as much as I wish I could,

I cannot protect your black body from the criticisms that this white world will pour on you

But I can do one thing and that is prepare you before you are let out into a world filled with danger around every corner

I can tell you what weapons they will use against you, the same ones that made me lose faith in my own black body so that you may be spared in some way the hurt I felt, so that you can be armored in your self worth so as not to fall at the blows they will spring upon youThe first thing they will do is call you out on your dark skin

Their murmurs and side glances will make you feel like an outsider

They will hold their flesh on a pedestal and demean yours every chance they get because they want to make you uncomfortable with your skin

They will try to determine for you what is beauty

They will say your thick hips and wide smile are not to their standards

They want you to separate yourself from your beauty

They want you to hate who you are because if you hate yourself, you will not protect yourself

Do not listen to their whispers. They are simply afraid, afraid of your beauty for your skin is gold You are a melaninated princess and your appearance speaks to your right to royalty. They fear the queen that you are, so love your self with a ferocity that makes the world tremble, adore your dark skin that you love simply because it is yours

The second thing they will do is silence you. They will tell you to be quiet because your words have the power to form countries. They will praise you in your silence and condemn your laughter as to say that you should be voiceless. But do not believe their lies. Make them quake with fear when you open your mouth.For you can speak miracles into existence

Never smother your speech so as not to offend them, say what is on your mind because your voice matters, pay no head to the shock on their faces when you tell them who you are. Say your name boldly and proudly because it was given to you by two people who knew your worth before you were born.

Thirdly, they will attempt to chain you down. They will tell you to sit still, to be complacent in their barring of your mobility. Do not let them stop you from moving. They do this to limit you, to make you believe you can only go so far, but you, You are a force of nature.

You are powerful and thus they try to chain you. Show them your fierceness. Show them with your walk how you have crossed and conquered lands. Show them with every raising of your hands and swaying of your hips that you are proud of your body and will move it how ever you please. Let the stomping of your feet be an earthquake to those around you. Never slow down or stop your movement. Give them no peace

Lastly, they will try to corrupt your knowledge. You will have history classes where every page you turn is white washed. There will be lesson after lesson on their history and you will receive none on your own. They will skim over the massacres of your people, down play the efforts of you black brothers and sisters and disregard their role in the destruction of your history.

They will not lie to you for some truly believe themselves to be set apart from the transgenerational damage that persists in your community, but do not lose faith

The educational system will not teach who you are, but I will. I will read you Baldwin, Hurston, Wright, Coates writer after writer who laid plain the way we lived and are still treated. You will know that your ancestors built America no matter how many try to deny it.

You will know that you built the bridges, you carved the cities, you made the roads, you brought hammer to nail and created a country. You are your history and you are your future. You have a story that no one else in the world has ever told

I will do my best to help you dodge the holes they have dug to trip you up. I will be there when the bullies throw sticks and stones to tell you that you are a flower made of gold and that sticks and stones cannot damage the embodiment of hope

But most importantly, I will expound every effort to ensure that the system trying to send you to your doom is damaged beyond recognition before it can ever lay a hand on you. I will give my all to the protection of your black body at the destruction of my own if so that you may have freedom, true freedom, to grow from my ashes and rise like the goddess you are