My Affinity for Being Black

Baba Kojo Owusu 5-28-26

The DEEP Psychological and Biological POWER of melanin.

I was 65 years old before I realized I could and should love being Black. Before this revelation, whenever I looked at myself in a mirror, I only saw my hair, my mustache, or my beard. My blackness was invisible to me. In fact, I almost despised the specific physical trait that comprised my racial identity.

This meant I avoided acknowledging the most powerful part of my human being-ness. To be human is to be Black. For we are the original people; all others are mutations.

It was in a Warrior Healer & Builder Retreat that I happily discovered the medicinal, psychological and spiritual power and advantages of being Black. Until this intervention, I didn’t realize that loving and embracing my Blackness meant trusting the wisdom that created me. After embracing my Blackness with my full -chess I understood what it meant to say out loud “I’m Black and I’m proud.” I no longer saw/see white as right.

“The color complex” still governs the way many Blacks are treated and how we treat each other. It is more than just skin - color apartheid or a pigmentocracy. Way too many of us don’t know the power of Melanin. We have not been taught how Melanin pheromones give off something both ingenuously human and astonishingly divine. What I once considered a deficit, I now understand is a powerful, indestructible, scientific, spiritual asset. The study of this magnificent asset has helped me understand and appreciate my history, my family, community, and the power “we darker than Blue” were born with. We have real Black Power hidden in plain sight from the inside out, in our skin and in almost every other part of our body. For the first time in my life, I love what I see in the mirror, the face that the creator gave me. And what’s so wonderful about the Blackness of my face… this pigmentation is only the tip of the iceberg, compared to what Melanin has done and is doing for me every minute of the day throughout my body.

I can’t imagine a better way of incorporating the teaching and learning of math, basic science, biology, chemistry, nutrition, our immune system, African history and culture, anthropology, psychology, research and problem solving than through the study of Melanin. When you participate in a life-long education system where almost every subject helps you understand and embrace the power and advantage of your Blackness, i.e. Melanin, nothing can stop you from being free. To the degree that Black folk understand, embrace, nurture and respect our abundance of Melanin as an inexhaustible biological power source is to the degree that we will challenge and stop the people, policies, and policies that are attempting to oppress us, heal the wounds of that oppression, and build African centered families, communities, organizations, businesses and institutions. This is my story and I’m sticking to it.