Purple is beautiful
I saw The Color Purple stage play last night. Look what God has done! Alice Walker’s novel confirmed for me at age seventeen that I wanted to be a writer. I remember sitting in my bedroom one summer day and reading the entire book. I don’t remember leaving the space. For hours, I read about Celie, her sister Netty and Mister. It was disturbing, amazing and inspiring.
Was it fiction? Naw! The story was too good, you can’t make that stuff up! I ended the day spent and ironically refreshed. The women – black women – in the story endured physical and sexual abuse, colonization, racism, incest, infidelity and remained strong.
It makes me wonder about all the untold stories of our grandmothers and great grandmothers and their mothers. I think about the ones who were just as talented, if not more talented, than we are today. The ones who were smart enough to be engineers or astronauts, but unfortunately not privileged enough to be born into a time period and society that acknowledged them at all.
Purple really gets me thinking that the tensions and stresses I face pale in comparison. I’ve never been enslaved, beaten or forbidden to learn. No one forced me to marry and my marriage doesn’t require me to submit my will, passions or self-respect.
In much of Walker’s writing she refers to black women as the mules of the world, the ones who everyone rides on. The ones who carry the weight of everything, the bulk of the work. I’m not sure I believe that philosophy whole heartedly applies to today’s black woman.
However, I do understand it.
I’m vividly aware of how we rank in society, the stereotypes, the misconceptions the errant perceptions and the accurate ones. Some of us are marginalized and misguided. Others fall at the opposite end of the spectrum. We’ve been educated, enlightened – and as such, elevated to a new ranking. One that often garners respect. Look what God has done.
