Last night I colored my hair, well my homegirl did. I probably annoyed the hell outta her the entire process because it’s so symbolic for me.

The Disney movie “Turning Red” is behind my hair color. I gotta stop letting Disney do this. I already have “Hakuna Matata” tattooed in Swahili on my wrist due to my “Lion King” experience. My kids understand the spirit realm because of “CoCo” and they insist on venerating their ancestors with an ofrenda. I’ve even found life lessons in “KungFu Panda”.

The message in this particular movie is about honoring ancestral practices that have been suppressed to fit in. In the movie the gift of the red panda was bestowed on Mei’s family to keep them safe but through time and colonization they were taught to believe that the red panda wasn’t a gift, it was treated more like a curse. It was something that needed to be hidden, tucked away unless it was being used as entertainment, thanks to ignorance and colonization.

Sound familiar black people?

Our ancestral ways are mocked or shunned. We are taught to believe African spirituality and ATR’s are savage and “playing with the devil”. We think that we are going to be possessed and become savage if we put up an altar or take a spiritual bath and our elders are so used to hiding we are attacked by them. They be knowing though, whether it’s because they’ve been taught or figure it out they choose not to educate us causing us to fear OURSELVES.

Mei had something else for them. She learned BALANCE! Controlling the very gift that her family was afraid of helped her make one of her dreams come true. She stayed true to herself first. Found where her Spiritual gifts fit in her “regular” world and then worried about being what they needed and still never caved. Mei carved her own path, and get this awakened her elders while at!!!!

When the panda spirit comes on them their hair would turn red but once they bottled it back up it went back to black. Well seeing as I’ve come to terms with balancing my ancestral practices and gifts with my everyday life I’ll be staying red. These gifts are a part of who I am and it won’t be shunned or made fun of. Nah I ain’t on my Erykah Badu stuff, I’m operating in my Spiritual gifts and using the tools my ancestors used before ignorance and colonization made my way taboo. Like Mei I won’t be bottling me up.

So if you see me and my bright red hair it’s for me to remind me of who I am. not just who this world intends for me to me but bringing every bit of the power bestowed upon me to the front. Not hiding. Not conforming. Not code switching. No euro beauty standards or religious traps. Not their diet or self loathing media. Not shrinking the kid for nobody.

Im black proud and loud! Authentically me.

Crystal thank you for helping me turning red!!!