Gon Girl and Hit Those Splits: Holy Aesthetics

“Can you drop it low…” Before my homegirl could even put a question mark on that sentence Baby Girl was in a full split as if to say, “you mean drop it low like this?” or “while you’re talking about it I’m going to be about it.” 

This scene from Black girl genius week South Carolina 2019 came back to me this week as I’m still returning to the question, “what do you want?” I want to be so sure of myself that I do the thing I know to do before it is asked of me. I want to trust that my body will do the thing I want and ask it to do. I want to always see myself like we all saw Baby Girl that night. 

Black girlhood teaches us so much, if we let it. In that moment of Baby Girl’s completion of my homegirl’s sentence I was so proud, particularly because she is being raised like we all hope to me…free without limitation. I think for many of us Black girls we remember when our bodies did as Baby Girl’s. When you were the secret weapon at the family function and your family egged you on? I remember my aunt, Lavette (somehow she makes into most of these blog post lol) and her bff Nevver would say they were going to take me out with them so that I could hit my “hump in the back.” As I write this I’m realizing really how much of a fool they made of me lol. I remember I believed that they would take me one day. I did not realize that before my big night on the town with my aunt and her homegirl my dancing would be stripped away. At some point in a Black girl’s life that “hump in the back” or “split to the floor” is not innocent or a show of skill and mastery. We know how this story goes, girl starts growing and curves she will later learn to appreciate start forming and her dance is taken from her and now her “doing the most” aesthetic is too much for anyone to handle. 

We dance in SOLHOT for the very reason of returning ourselves back to our doing the most aesthetics. We have to learn our bodies again after our dance is no longer our own. Homegirl scholars have written about our dancing and dancing together s/o Ruth Nicole Brown, Grenita Hall, and Dominique Hill (do look them up and cite their work). The dance/ing is absolutely important and I think this is so because it challenges us to see Black girls as always being innocent or turning out the party/family function. The dancing is important because it allows us to see Black girls as just being, which is holy. 

Holiness as a word used to describe Black girls provides the lens with which to see Black girls as always ready and finishing your sentence with action. We never tell, we show and prove. Holy/iness points to Black girls having a thing that we desperately need to live our best lives. Holiness is Black girls having the answers we seek about this world and other worlds. Further, what I know is that even if there is some initial uncomfortability to dance and the girls flat our refuse they still recognize it as something they remember or something that is worthwhile remembering. It’s like a secret handshake or nod that we know and we remember. Maybe a girl won’t dance, but she will show up and bring her momma too and I know that this is just as powerful and is the same as her hitting her split.  I want us all to go get our splits to the floor back and be about the very things we want and are.  

 **There was one other picture I wanted to share, but I ain't there yet lololol**