Some people may see this clip of K. Michelle as just a moment. But we see history. Few dare to understand what it is like to come from a people—Bl
Some people may see this clip of K. Michelle as just a moment.
But we see history.
Few dare to understand what it is like to come from a people—Black Americans—who have created, built, and birthed entire worlds of music, dance, language, and style… only to be told that we do not belong.
Only to watch it co-opted, renamed, repackaged—then served back to us with our names missing from the credits.
This is not rare.
This is not new.
This happens on this soil, in this country, to many of us.
Our Native American kin know that same erasure.
They sing that same song.
Their art, their stories, their identity have been twisted into caricatures:
“Savages.”
“Criminals.”
“Sexualized.”
“Lazy.”
All lies.
What they really are—and what we really are:
Innovators.
Survivors.
Overcomers.
Master storytellers.
Artists.
Creators.
Truth-holders.
But when false narratives take root, they do more than distort reputation.
They block justice.
They delay healing.
They replace truth with noise.
So we tell our own stories.
We sing anyway.
We dance anyway.
We speak anyway.
We document anyway.
Because they may try to erase us from the genres we birthed,
but we survive abuse by remembering this:
We were never the guests. We were always the architects.
And we still are.