Blood at the Root

by LaDarrion Williams

“I mean, this.” I point all around us. “It’s a whole campus full of magical niggas.”

“Dear Black girl, you are wrapped in gold. Your hair twists down your head like roots from a tree—you are wonderfully and fearfully made. You are the living image of God herself. Dipped in honey and mahogany. The standard, even when they try to tell you you’re not. Black girl, you are the foundation. The lineage that holds a million generations.”

“Black girl magic is not just a hashtag. It’s a spell conjured up from the mouths of our ancestors. Black girl, you are God herself. Queen mother. Sister. Cinnamon princess. The healer of wounds. The giver of life. You are. I am. We are. Infinite. The head and the tail. Your body is made like mountains for them to build themselves upon. You are wonderfully and—now I

know—not fearfully made. Because their fear is not your fault. It’s steeped in ignorance. And with that, they teach us to shrink ourselves. To disappear and not matter. They don’t know we are the foundation that they try so hard to mutilate and even kill themselves to be like a…Black girl.”

“You erased that evil, sadistic version of your mother and replaced those memories with false ones. Your own personal ghost kingdom. It’s Childhood Trauma 101.”