(ThyBlackMan.com) So about a day ago, I wrote an entry to commend black women of all shapes, colors and sizes. Article can be found here; https://thyblackman.com/2011/04/02/a-tribute-to-the-sistas/.
I encouraged all black women no matter what shade, hairstyle, or attitude they had, to love themselves in the face of negative media images. I told them not to feel bad that they weren’t popular in the majority, because they would always be popular with me. I asked them that they value themselves because I value them as well.
It was met with an overwhelmingly positive feedback. Sisters near and wide applauded my efforts to speak positively in an era where it has been more 
than ok to demean them. I told my brothers not to worry, that I would soon write a tribute to our own greatness. Forever a man of my word, here it is
Brothers, this one’s for us.
I know what they say about us. We’re violent. We’re thugs. We’re on drugs. We beat our women. We don’t take care of our kids. We’re angry. We lust after women who aren’t black.
Go on. Let them talk.
All of this happens, but that is not the only thing that we are. The country was built on our backs. They turned us against each other. They took away our mothers, our grandmothers, our wives, our sons, and our daughters. They tried their best to break us.
And they still haven’t done it.
Brothers we are out here handling business. We are going to school and we are mastering the education that they said we were too dumb to learn. We are out here trying to save the communities that they ravaged and turned their backs on.
They said that we’re hustlers and manipulators.
They are right.
We hustle and find ways to work the system to our benefit. We know how to manipulate our language to fit right in with our brothers and sisters in the projects, and then put our suit on and manipulate the boss to get our corporate money. Nobody has the worries that we have, but we don’t let that slow us down. We’re too cool for that. Too smooth for that. Too smart for that.
Brothers, we are the most hated, vilified, loved and copied people on the planet. When the world looks for the next trend, they look to us. No race of woman on the planet denies us. We’re basically walking Visas, everywhere we are, is where people want to be. They try to imitate our style, our slang, our swag, and our coolness. You should never be upset for imitation is the SINCEREST form of flattery.
We face obstacles that lesser men would have crumbled under. They use statistics to try and box us in. They put drugs and liquor in our communities; they give us guns and ask why we kill each other. But some of these places where hope no longer lives, and despair would have crushed anybody else, it is in these places where most of us have come from, and have found the life skills to survive even the most horrific experiences.
They are scared of us because they know the power that we wield. They try to break us up because they know if we stand together, we can conquer anything. They hate us because they wish to possess everything that we have. Brothers these are not things to be upset about, these are things we should embrace.
When we’re born we have to climb the highest mountain while others only need to climb hills. We have to run the fastest times where others only have to walk to their destination. What we eat for dinner, to them, is only a snack. We have to be the smartest in class, the best dressed in the interview room, and the most well spoken in the office.
Do not be mad at these circumstances, for what man would NOT want to be the smartest, the best dressed, or the most well spoken? What man would NOT want the ability to consistently make a way where there is none?
We are also chameleons. We can be a fighter one minute, a lover the next. We can be the head of the household, and also cook up a mean dish in the kitchen. We can be the strongest of the strongest, and switch to being able to empathize with others in their situations. We’re sports stars, rappers, doctors, lawyers, judges, celebrities, hustlers, and outside the box thinkers.
My brothers I ask that you do not let them dictate what we are, that is only for ourselves to define. We are better than every negative thing they say about us, and we extend far past what they think we’re capable of. Embrace that. For it is that talent, will to survive, drive, and inner strength that makes us who we are. It isn’t a choice because brothers what you need to realize is…
This is who we are.
Peace.
Staff Writer; Garfield Hylton
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