Close your eyes and imagine Black people all over the world loving each other unconditionally and unfiltered. Imagine Black people unified and synchronized in the execution of a global crusade to love, honor, celebrate, liberate, and elevate Black people. A galactic and magnificent movement of melanin united to wield our most potent weapon against the forces that try to conquer us. That weapon is Black love. But Black love is under attack. White terrorism seeks to silence, oppress, and destroy Black people and Black love. And while we are under siege, we hold our breath as we struggle to survive the treachery of this toxic terrorism. We deny ourselves the breath that love gives to life’s lungs. We suffocate ourselves with the filters of doubt, despair, grief, and fear. These filters keep us from inhaling the healing sensations of love that could save our lives. Our capacity to love collapses in the chaos, which is part of the Beautiful Struggle of living and loving in a Black body. In Let’s Talk About Love, I offer you a lovely breath of love in five short inhalations of poetic prose. This book does not glamorize or mystify love. Instead, it provides you with a radical illustration of what love can look like when you define it, choose it, and embody it on your own terms. I’m talking about revolutionary love! Love is not an illusion. It is not avoiding you. Learn how to return to love, and how to let love bring you back to yourself. Let love resuscitate you and inspire you, and let love feed and nourish your mind, body, and spirit. Come journey with me into an exploration of Black love for self, intimate partners, friends, family, community members, and your siblings of the African diaspora. Love is the only thing whiteness can’t take from us. In the quest for justice, freedom, and liberation, let love be your fortitude and your fortress. With Black love as our compass and sword, we will win. It’s time to amour up! Put your love in motion, and above all else, be love. Inhale. Exhale. Let us begin this love revolution together.
