I am an artist – a child of the universe, rich in laughter, love and life, who dares to unwrap the universe’s gifts in my own truth. I create “Wonderfully Whimsical Works of Art by Sharon Martini” in which the colors black and white feature prominently. I outline the solid blocks of vibrant color that make up my pictures with black lines, and partner black and white in the borders.

As much as red – bright, blood, scarlet, primary red – is my absolute favorite color, I do not consider my creations complete without an abundance of black and white. To me black and white are the yin and yang of my creations, balancing out my compositions. Sort of day and night, dark and light, without either of which, none of my illustrations can be whole.

I love the way the contrast of the colors together, side-by-side, create harmony and balance, equilibrium in my drawings, informing me of their completion. Individually, their active energy sparkles, sharpens, defines and renders tangible my imagination. For me, the colors black and white are necessary, both stimulating and calming components of my two and three-dimensional creative world.

In contemporary Western society however, these two colors can facilitate chaos, consternation and frequently, cruelty. Black and white typically symbolize opposites; the dichotomy of good and evil, love and hate, angels and demons. They are loaded with cultural, spiritual, societal and linguistic connotation. To ascertain why this might be, when for me, black and white means artistic bliss, let’s take a look at the “stories” of black and white, beginning with the color aspect?

If you take a color wheel, you will find red, yellow, orange, purple, blue, green, and hues in between. No matter how hard you twist, turn, or spin the wheel though, you will not find the colors black or white.

According to The American Heritage Dictionary, color is defined as, “The visible aspect of things caused by the differing qualities of the light reflected or emitted by them. A dye, pigment or paint that imparts a hue and skin tone.” So far so good, I am, as I mentioned earlier, partial to black and white paint in my artwork.

Delving further into definitions, black is defined as, “The achromatic color of maximum darkness; the color of objects that absorb nearly all light of all visible wavelengths.” White is defined as, “The achromatic color of maximum lightness; the color of objects that reflect nearly all light of all visible wavelengths.” Ah hah! Black and white are colors, of a kind. They are achromatic colors – colors without hue yet incorporate all colors on the color wheel.

Fine, fabulous so far. Let us now peek at some black and white synonyms. For black we have, soiled, (as from soot,) dirty, evil, wicked, depressing, gloomy, angry, sullen, morbid, dark. And white ones include, but are certainly not limited to, light-colored, pale, blank, unsullied, pure, snowy, incandescent, clean. Oh my! The scales are definitely tipping in favor of one color over the other, instigating division, as we dive into descriptions. I mean, if it’s a choice between “evil” and “gloomy” or “incandescent” and “pure,” is there really any competition?

Still, it’s only language. With the aforementioned lists in mind, let’s compare some traditional, religious and/or societal interpretations and meanings.

• The medieval Christian sect known as the Cathars viewed black as a color of perfection.
• In the Ifá tradition the orisha Obatala is represented with white – calmness, morality, old age, and purity.
• In the Japanese culture, Black is associated with honor, not death. Kuro (black) is a symbol of nobility, age, and experience. The black belt is a mark of achievement and seniority in many martial arts.
• In Japanese culture, White is associated with death. Shiro (white), symbolizes serfdom, youth, and naiveté. In Shotokan karate, a white belt is a rank-less belt which comes before all other belts.
• Black is a symbol of mourning and bereavement in Western societies.
• In Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese and Indian tradition, white is the color of mourning and death.
• In the Maasai tribes of Kenya and Tanzania, black is associated with rain clouds, a symbol of life and prosperity.
• To whitewash, means to obscure the truth by issuing a blanket of lies. Also it is the action of burying or shoving someone’s face into the snow, as a form of bullying, or harassment.

That show was CNN’s “Kids On Race: The Doll Study Revisited.” In a recreation of a 1947 experiment, a group of children were asked to choose the good, bad, ugly, pretty or “one that looks like me” doll from drawings ranging in hue from pale pink to dark chocolate, or, white to black. Almost across the board when asked to select the “doll” with positive traits the children chose the “white” one. When picking the negatives, yep you guessed it, they picked the darkest dolly, the “black” one.

Though not my first time observing this type of experiment and sadly, not surprised, my heart still ached as I questioned, again, how it was that, Anno Domini 2011, sixty plus years on, with the leader of the “free” world a milk-coffee-colored cousin, that the “barely out of diapers” future leaders of our world (and as current headlines imply, suit clad corporate leaders) continue to learn, and believe to the detriment of hue-manity, these putrid but persistent lessons? What are we adults teaching our children? And why are we adults perpetuating the madness? Obviously something is a miss. (Incredulous, I ask myself, and anyone who can hear, “Why are we still having this conversation?”) Something is not working, or then again, maybe that was the plan all along. But I digress.

It has shocked and saddened me during my journeys to the land of my parents, my ancestors; the home of my own vagabond, or wandering, soul, that the same self-hatred and disdain for one’s darkness, blackness, abundance of melanin, visibly evident African heritage, that reigns and rages, in the United States of America (and beyond) permeates this – rich, bounteous of spirit, heart and life – little island of Jamaica.

My mother had told stories of when as a child, being darker of hue and shackled with the twin shame of poverty, her “place” was in the back of the classroom at the “good” school she attended, and even that only because her mother washed its floors. Still, I say to myself that was then…

Will we, and I mean all of hue—manity, learn the truth of whom we truly are and what skin shade simply is at its core? Can we purge ourselves of the poisons we have been fed, disguised as lessons and learning; the blatantly illogical yet pernicious lies that corrupt us, our colors, our consciences, our compassion? Can we reclaim our power, take back our hearts, reaquaint with ourselves? Can we become the conquistadores of our own personal Freedom?

What if one knew that melanin is what colors us, what paints us uniquely in shades from milk to midnight; that technically, it is due either to abundance or deficiency, that we humans become black or white.

What if it was common knowledge that melanin is what darkens our skin, our hair, our eyes? Melanin helps us hear, colors our hearts, our blood, liver, the marrow in our bones, and gave “birth” to the stars.

What if you knew that melanin is protector, reflector, diviner, deflector, healer, highway-to-the-Divine; the almighty alchemist; the chemical of life? One-drop being sanctifier not stain – the key to life’s door?

What if you knew that billions of dollars of global government monies have been spent, and are continuing to be spent, studying melanin…and its magic?

Melanin is the most absorbent material known to man. It is melanin in a synthetic form that provided the insulation protecting the electrical wires of the now retired NASA Space Shuttle.

What if these truths were known to all human kind?
Imagine with me for a moment…

A rending of the cloak of inferiority, victim-hood, self-hatred, worn by the melanin-infused among us; this cloak woven and gifted “in the name of love, and God.”

The silencing, once and for all, of the perpetually repeated lies of white supremacy. The diminishing of the potency and power of color prejudice, and its big daddy racism.

We all, each one of us of every hue, have (are) melanin. What if we all knew and understood this?

What if commonsense/the universe/Sophia/wisdom/Goddess/God, whispered and we listened, really listened to her, “If you need a touch of melanin just to function, might that suggest the more you have, the greater thou can be?

Could humankind walk hand in hand, freed, no longer needing to run, hinder, hide, detach, crush, control, squelch, the “other;” able finally, to let go, relax and open to the unique foibles and fortes of each individual, no matter their skin tone?

Imagine knowing, deep in your heart, in the marrow of your bones, in your soul, in your melanin, that, like chlorophyll to plants, melanin to man, is the alpha and the omega?

No person, rule, wrong, “Doll Study” or “Brownings, Please” could ever take that away.

This, strange as it may seem, is easier said than done.

First, domestic abuse is frequently invisible to everyone but the victim(s) especially when it is verbal and emotional. There are no bruises or broken bones to display in exchange for compassion, empathy, or simple sympathy.

The victim becomes mute, surrendering voice to survive, suffocating in mind-jabbering silence, shame, self-recrimination and blame. “If I hadn’t made him mad…” “If we speak it will make her mad and she will beat us.” “If I speak then I expose to the world my ineptitude at being wife/woman/mother/man/husband/father/partner – human.” “If I speak I will shame my family, my church, my community, my workplace.” “If I speak I will lose access to my house, food, clothing, my children, money, my job, societal status, etc. etc. etc.”

Justification saunters uninvited into your taciturnity and proceeds to dance a maniacal two-step on your brain with denial and blame. You question your sanity, your desires, your needs, wants; your basic human rights. Unfailingly, your answers support your position that you are not entitled to any of those. “You are bad.” “You are black.” “You are poor.” “Remember where you came from….” “It’s all in your imagination.” “He took you and your children in.” “It’s not so bad.” “This is what you deserve.” “You are ugly.” “Toughen up, get over it, your mother had it much worse.”

Negative messages bombard you becoming crippling mantras with every laboured breath you take. Peppering your pummeled mind, adding confusion upon confusion. You find yourself questioning whether your left hand is indeed your left hand. “… Maybe it’s the right?” You no longer know anything.

You subsist on a diet of subterfuge, tension, and soul crushing anxiety. You swallow without chewing your festering rage. Tiptoeing around on eggshells you mercifully attend to the children, the family, the house, the garden, the church, the social groups, school, anything to avoid having to face the dire truth of your situation. One foot in front of the other, numb, impervious to feeling or sensation you maintain a state of frantic busyness, so as to not succumb – “to keep your head above water,” as the saying goes. Even though, if allowed one wish, it would be to buckle your knees and fall, surrendering wholly, finally, to Death’s seduction, the incessant whispers lasciviously caressing your every cell, enticing you with promises of sweet release – peace.

But, you do not succumb, you keep going; for the children; for the family; the community; the church; anyone but you. You see, on this long, ever-growing list of obligations and obligees, your name does not appear, for your life has become self-sacrifice, a lingering suicide, your self-esteem so fragmented you no longer exist. So how can it possibly occur to you that you can, (and must,) do for you? You cannot hear “GET UP! YOU ARE ENTITLED TO BETTER! RUN! SAVE YOURSELF! LIVE!” No. No. They cannot be talking to me?

And still, there is within, something, (spirit, an indomitable force, the call of the ancestors perhaps,) buried deep amongst the muck, mayhem, disappointment and duty that hardens your heart; “bellows softly blowing” doggedly pumping to keep the embers of your life-light from extinguishing completely, until such time when you can rise again from the ashes.

Leaving an abusive relationship is one of the hardest things to do. In fact, leaving any relationship is hard, even when uninspiring, the love long departed. It is because it is familiar; it is what you know. We are all too familiar with the adage, ‘Tis better the devil you know! On average it takes a victim of abuse seven tries before being able to permanently leave an abuser. (The most dangerous point in an abusive relationship is the time during and immediately following leaving). However, the task can be easier with planning and preparation:

Contact, or at least know, the contact information of the domestic violence/sexual assault programs in your area.

Build a strong support system if you can. Or at least try to become involved in outside activities so you are not completely isolated.

Make an escape plan which may include:

A place to hide the car keys and other important items.

A hidden emergency fund. Begin stashing away a little cash from any allowances
and/or grocery money. If your finances are entwined consider secretly opening a separate bank account in your name only, preferably with a different financial institution.

A packed suitcase with a couple changes of clothes for yourself and your family. Leave this with a trusted friend or somewhere your partner will not find it. Include copies of birth certificates, passports, evidence documenting the abuse, and any other pertinent personal documents such as financial records.

A safe, secure place, preferably unknown to the abuser, where you can go, Have a plan to get there undetected.

Develop a plan for calling the police in an emergency, or having someone call on your behalf.

Notify few people of your plans. Friends or family can, in an attempt to help, jeopardize your safety by exposing your plans to your abuser.

Be kind to yourself. Take time for yourself. Find ways to affirm your goodness and your worth.

Keep a journal and write out your feelings. Keep your journal in a safe place.

Continuing in my efforts to educate on abuse, I am again organizing, producing and performing in The Vagina Monologues in Jamaica. This time in Treasure Beach, ST. Elizabeth. The Ladies Who Dare! presents a benefit production of “The Vagina Monologues” as part of the V-Day Global campaign to end violence against women and girls.

7 pm, Saturday, April 30, 2011 at Frenchman’s Reef Restaurant and Bar
Treasure Beach, St. Elizabeth, Jamaica

In addition to “Ladies Who Dare!” from the greater Treasure Beach Community and beyond, the cast includes Dr. Glenda Simms, former Executive Director of the Bureau of Women’s Affairs, Marie Sparkes, founder of Pure Potential (a privately-operated Jamaican Therapy company whose objectives are to give victims a wider range of strategies, skills and knowlege to manage the issues of sexual abuse and exploitation) and five young ladies who dare from Treasure Beach’s A Ganar Youth Leadership Program.

This event is a fundraiser for abused and exploited women in St. Elizabeth. Funds raised will be used to create a Healing Advocacy Fund for “Suzie” of Treasure Beach. Requested donation Ja$500.

To buy tickets online or to make a donation.

For tickets and information call: 876-574-3556
Email: thevaginamonologues@sharonmartini.com

Visit the official V-Day website at: www.vday.org

One year ago watching the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, I wondered what I could do, besides send money, to help. One day it hit me to conduit a healing journey for the country. “La Traversée” (The Crossing Over) is that healing.

Time! by Sharon Martini

Today time whizzes like a dragonfly’s wing.

Tomorrow it could flow like molasses.

But one thing is for sure.

Always, and without end, time passes.

(What will you do with your allotment?)

All words and art © Sharon Martini. All rights reserved.

It is a shame that the Thanksgiving tale we are told is a lie (along with lots and lots and lots of other tales we have been told, but today is Thanksgiving’s turn.) The actual truth is just a teensy, weensy, bit, (and I do use this term facetiously) different.

For an Native American perspective and to read a surpressed speech click here.

We are all human beings made from the same matter, with equal ability for malevolence and good. Unfortunately, due to the wickedness of some and the intentional withholding of information and truth, we are not meant to realize that we know this. It is inherent in our hearts. But our hearts are so hardened and coated in crust and learning.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.” We, humanity cannot heal, cannot come together until we re-remember that we all are one. Dare to be empowered. Free your mind so you may liberate your heart, so it can beat in unison with all.

Enjoy your turkey, but chew, swallow, and be sated, in the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Does it speak to you?

I have been thinking a lot about you lately, Love. No, I am not submerged in some fiery new fascination. Quite the contrary! I have been pondering how you have appeared in my life, Love.

As a little girl I knew you well, Love. All pink hearts, apple pies, deportment and discipline. They told me. I knew it to be true, in-between. Then Love, you told me, “I beat you because I Love you. Never mind the welts, they will heal and you will be strong, steadfast; a person of whom I can be proud. Besides, it was the same love that grew me, and look, it did me no harm, I am fine.”

Is it standard practice, Love, to declare (on tape no less,) “Don’t take any shit from my daughter!” on her wedding day?

I grew up, (well, I had several birthdays,) and you Love, became red roses, opened doors, chivalry, providence and protection. I believed them then too, in-between. This time because I needed to.

Doesn’t the traditional “fairytale” wedding vow state, “In sickness and in health…?” So why Love, did you leave me fearing your care in the event of my incapacity?

“All you need is love.” Says the song. Has anyone ever asked what kind of love, Love?

Remember when you used to insist, “I do not want to hear you say, “Can’t” because you can. You forgot to tell the truth Love, that anything I did accomplish needed to remain behind you, in your shadow.

It was you Love who held me, manacled-by-man, arms behind my back, as you instructed love to beat me, break me, put me in my place.

“I love you!” You shout, type, tell, proclaim, at every opportunity. But then you shut me out, Love. “Send me to Coventry.” That is what we call it where I am from. “Of course you know I love you but you may not come in for your presence renders me invisible. Might you bend, shuffle, dim?” You confess in inebriated verbosity, Love.

Love you have a multitude of faces, forms and fundamentals. You are not always kind and you are most certainly not always nice. Quite frankly, Amor, you have been for me, to use English vernacular, a royal pain in the bottom.

So Love, the purpose of this letter is to bid you adieu, so long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye. I will no longer accept you in my world as you are. Yes, I am fully aware that there will be consequences for my brave, or foolish, decision (only I shall know the final outcome,) but I need to take the risk. For Love, it is, at this juncture in my life, do or die my darling.

I know the love that I need is out there in the ether, in the air! Love that laughs and likes little old me — warts and all. Love that is communicative, caring and kind; that lingers with neither hurt nor smart; that is affectionately loquacious both in silence and in song. Love that will share time, and breath, and space with me — willingly and wantonly.

Do you know what I believe, Love? I believe that this love, my special, particular, peculiar, kind of love, lives inside of me, and even as we “speak,” Love, my unique personal love-story is writing itself. It is up to me. In fact, it is only me, Love, who can publish it, set it free.

Throughout my years of acquaintance with you in your various guises, Love, the most sacred lesson I have gleaned is, “Love is the key to liberation.”

I am using my key, Love. How about you? Have you the courage to set it free?

This column was published in the August, 2010, edition of The Southwest Community Connection newspaper.

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!

I am in the birds
I am in the bees

My commission was to create an art piece that depicted social justice. My creation entitled, “Mirror, Mirror…There I Am!” was unveiled at MRG’s “Justice Within Reach” Fundraiser, April 10, 2010. (Find it here at www.sharonmartini.com, or www.mrg.org.)

I am in the trees
I am in the seas

When Sheryl Sackman, the Development Director of MRG telephoned to tell me I had won, I am not ashamed to say, my giddy inner, old-fashioned, twelve year-old was unleashed. Grinning, naught but glistening white dentition in pajamas was I on the other end of the line.

I am in the ocean
In the wild
I am in the child

Elated I danced around my house – I had won an award! Then, out of breath, boogied unceremoniously back to reality, I wondered whom I could tell; who could stand to hear my happy news. Later still, I worried that in my exuberance (or delirium,) I had misheard. Maybe Sheryl had not, in fact, told me I was a winner?

I am in the winter
In the wind

Social justice is truth. It is the recognition that we all are human, descended from the dark, melanistic mother. “From out of Africa.”

I am in the summer sun
The soil
I am in your heart

Social justice is the knowledge that we humans exist in tandem, together and entangled with nature in all its incarnations. Social justice is wholeness.

I am in the storm
I am in the breeze
I am in the farm
I am in the field

Social justice begins with me. It starts with my seeking, finding, accepting and loving, unconditionally, the “I am” in me and being able to recognize her reflected back in everyone and everything I see.

I am in the hour
In the dark
I am in the day

Social justice is possible, I would never have entered the contest if I did not believe that. But social justice cannot exist without the human lest it remain a pithy, yet impotent, phrase, large letters on a placard, waving furiously, futile, in the air.

I am in the book
I am in the beast

We are forgetting the human. We are forgetting how to be wholly human sharing space, place, vulnerability and truth. Social justice is elusive.

I am in the famine
In the feast
I am in the fire

I am human (or at least I try.) I know pleasure. I have known pain. I know loneliness and longing. I have known sorrow. I know self-love. I have known betrayal and rejection, yet I know joy. Social justice is joy.

I am in the glory
In the story
I am in the man

Social justice is oneness. We have forgotten the oneness of nature, of us, and our place within it, as parts and pieces of the puzzle.

I am in the winter
I am out of Africa
I am in your soul

Social justice is love. We have forgotten pure love. We are forgetting our source.

I am in the world
I am in the mother
I am in me

Social justice is liberty. It is equality. Social justice is humanity remembered. It is humanity healed. Social justice sings:

I am human
I am home
I am human
I am here
I am human
We are whole

This column was originally published in the July, 2010 edition of The Southwest Community Connection newspaper.