I dream of a land with wide open spaces and no man-made structures for as far as the eye can see. I envision brown bodies loving each other and lifting each other up in harmony, praising the spirit that freed them.
But buildings block my vision and irritate my soul.
In college was a student worker and during my shift I had to escort a service worker throughout student residents’ apartments. I was upset to be working on such a sunny day while the serviceman was complaining about the sun’s intensity slowing him down. The pasty cable guy was from London, he had English accent and was very nice, but was upset about the fact that as we moved from unit to unit we had to step outside. I thought to myself, ‘getting to be outdoors on this sunny day was getting me through these terribly boring hours’. Sitting inside of the empty dark units was miserable, even while reading Terry McMillan’s How Stella Got Her Groove Back.
“If only it wasn’t so hot maybe I would work faster,” the cable guy complained, but I couldn’t relate to him. The sun was actually bringing up my mood, when I felt uncomfortable I would step outside and its rays heating up my skin while breathing in the fresh air would relax me. I love being outside and feeling the sun on my face.
When I was younger I remember how excited I would get whenever the teacher agreed to have class outside. I’d think to myself, finally we can leave, even for a moment so that I could come back alive! There aren’t many equivalent opportunities to spend times working outdoors now. Everywhere I look I see buildings: schools, grocery stores, arcades, boutiques, offices, malls, restaurants, hospitals and everything you can think of boarded up behind walls blocking the sun, separating humans from nature and polluting the environment.
Regularly outdoor institutions that aren’t targeted toward children are bus stops and gas stations. Both are quick and painless, timed and precise, limited. Don’t worry American’s you won’t have to spend too much time outside and if you happen to have to be outside we will make sure that you know for exactly how long with a bus schedule or a gas pump reader because we know that for every second you spend outside you age as your skin cells deteriorates from the sun’s powerful stare. You run away from the unifying life giver, you block it with creams, clothes and buildings.
I envy countries whose institutions embrace the outdoors: schools with large open windows and shops without rooftops. Why do we have so many buildings in America? On every corner blocking natures beautiful views, standing tall and spewing poison into the sky?
Because melanin deficient people cannot take the sun. Not for longer than their walk from inside a building into the car.
One may point to the fact that I’m in Seattle, where the rain never stops, but even in other parts of the country tall and heavy buildings dominate every square mile where there aren’t roads or crops. I use to think that the lack of outdoor activity was normal but I realize that outdoor activity is frowned upon, so much so that a group of men outdoors can be interpreted as ‘suspicious behavior’.
I was driving through a new neighborhood with my family just this past weekend. While in the car looking for a destination my stepmother commented on the fact that it ‘looked like a bad neighborhood’. She pointed out a group of men, a few with their shirts off, standing outside of a gas station. “What’s wrong with them?” I asked her. Then she directed my attention to a woman walking by them wearing shorts and a tank top, “And look at the way she’s dressed”. I was upset with her attitude because I’m sure that if her and I were standing outside on a hot day we would rather be wearing shorts than a fur coat. “There’s nothing wrong with people being outside and it’s hot, they’re probably just relaxing.” My response didn’t embody even a percentage of the frustration that I was feeling, because this was an example of how we demonize certain behaviors because we don’t regularly see Western culture demonstrating or validating that type of behavior. Here again is where we see that dangerous white is right mentality. If we continue to limit our actions to what can be validated by Whites we will always come up short for ourselves, because we can do so much more.
Buildings are for protection and shelter, but we do not need to protect ourselves from the outdoors 24/7. Think about how often you spend in a building in comparison to outdoors and you may be shocked. A person who leaves their home in the morning 8am, only to spend 20min in the car, 8hrs in a building at work, and then another 20min in the car before spending the rest of their day at home inside is not spending enough time outdoors. Nothing in our homes is natural, it’s a bunch of man-made stuff (even the food) and surrounding ourselves with that all of the time isn’t healthy. Our bodies not only can use the sun’s rays but, unlike those who’s skin shatter and crumble after a few moments in the sun, our bodies thrive on it. We need to be outside soaking up the sun’s energy and breathing what is left of fresh air (they are already selling air to breath in China).
These buildings are not our protection; they are barriers. The more time we spend outside, the more connected we get to ourselves and stronger we become. We can no longer continue to live like Whites or we will persistently be weak blacks. You cannot feed a lion cans of cat food and think that you’re going to raise a powerful lion. We have been living like lions who are trying to be cats for centuries, it’s time to stop acting silly and let our mane grow.
