The Life of a Leo

I just recently bought Ebony Magazine’s Special Issue that featured 3 different issue covers of Black Celebrity Couples. The features were Beyonce & Hov, Nicole Ari & Boris Kodjoe, & First Lady Michelle & President Barack Obama. In the mist of me being excited I wanted to buy all three but I was really excited to read more about “Black Love” which was the topic of the magazine.
Being Twenty years old you’re at the peak of adult life & love. It’s like you’ve been pushed to a hill but haven’t reached the age to climb it. However, you hear the mouth of elders who say, “You’re too young for love”…or “You don’t know what real love is”. I know I’m not the only one who gets annoyed easily by this. Since when did you have to be a certain age to know what love is? Of course we grow and experience relationships eventually building our own perception of it but my question is beyond just love…What is Black Love?
On Ebony Magazine’s Feb 2011 Special Issue reads“Celebrate Black Love: Power, Passion, Purpose”. As I flipped through the pages I anxiously made my way to an article by Claire Mcintosh which then read “The Ebony Partner Project”. This was interesting as I viewed drawings of African American couples by Louisa Bertmanon the cover page. There was old, young, same sex, older woman w/ younger man, older man w/ younger woman, and a woman pregnant. I began to wonder…is this the message behind Black Love. But I knew there was  more just as I turned the page a list of what Black Love is. 

1. Black love is within. It means loving the person who smiles back in the mirror.
2. Black love is intentional. It’s deciding day after day through triumph and challenge to stay positive, present, authentic and connected.
3. Black love is faithful. It is believing, in the face of daunting number on crime, poverty, unemployment, violence, drugs, divorce and incarceration in Black America, that ‘I am a spiritual being, not a statistic.’
4. Black love is transformative. It creates breathtaking change. We have seen the love of a good Black woman help her husband advance in his public service mission from the South Side of Chicago to the West Wing of the White house.
5. Black love is enduring.
6. Most Important: Black love is Black Power.Stronger partnerships strengthen our communities, especially when they lead to marriage. (-Claire Mcintosh, Ebony Magazine,68-69)

If you want to know what my definition of Black Love is as well as share your definition..feel free to Comment/Feedback or email me: talk.that.shh@gmail.com 

The One & Only,
SKY

Thoughts? Questions?

Peace.