Kendrick's Importance
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Kendrick's importance in the context of Afro American history and culture is immense. His work speaks for so many people's experience and internalized racism living Black in America. He represents the truth and the rawest version of the culture on so many levels. The reality that comes with the mental, emotional, physical and spiritual abuse throughout generations and to this day is beyond words and severely underestimated. The climate of segregation is still very alive, and young Black children have to deal with all kinds of racism and discrimination, carry it into adulthood while trying to not perpetuate the same abuse they lived. If you know anything about abuse, psychological violence has way deeper and longer effects than physical. Now multiply that by intensity and through generations, on top of the spiritual and physical side of things. Kendrick is not the first to speak on the level he does, but he managed to do it in such a clear and powerful way that he's become a leader and reflection for so many. Us outsiders can appreciate, be nourished, transformed even by his work, but we will never come close to understanding the vitality of his work and presence in an embodied way. The Blacker the Berry is one of so many other example of how he manages to combine intricacy, emotion, self-empowerment and critique all at once. The dichotomy of the last sentence is a great example of the embedded nature and imposition of segregation in the States, specifically regarding Colourism, an internalized symptom of living in the climate of white supremacy. It also alludes to the social order of Gangs, which is meant to be a tool for order and kinship in the community but has been manipulated by the State to be seen as solely a violent and self-destructive system. That's not to say the violence doesn't exist, but it's once again a symptom of white supremacy and very much deeper than simply self-destruction. Especially in Amerikkkan context, where everything has been manipulated and organized for Black people to self-destruct and White America to say they did it to themselves... Kendrick is a symbol of truth about the layers of his lived experience, reflecting and validating so many others in their truth. No one is crazy. The system is designed to make us that way.