won't you celebrate with me

what i have shaped into

a kind of life? i had no model.

born in babylon

both nonwhite and woman

what did i see to be except myself?

i made it up

here on this bridge between

starshine and clay,

my one hand holding tight

my other hand; come celebrate

with me that everyday

something has tried to kill me

and has failed.

 -        Lucille Clifton

Naming you was a group effort. We all brainstormed and wondered what you should be called. In the end we chose Anaya, meaning care, and it's funny.

Bibi was a panther.

Grandmother, neither our mother nor father's mother but grandmother by all accounts. Born a revolutionary and she taught us well.

I watch you when you chant Black Lives Matter and smile when every poster board reminds you of a protest. Because every sign must be one demanding justice, right? But then I stop smiling. And I wonder at a world that taught you how to fight before you could learn how to fly.

Your name means care or a special kind of care that God gives his believers. And it's funny, because you do care for us. In the ways only a three year old can. Like when Mommy scolds Amin and you say, “Mommy, don’t yell at my brother, he’s a good brother!”

I think about the meaning of protest. In any given situation. The value, struggle, and power of standing up for yourself in everyday circumstances or in once in a lifetime battles. Defining moments.

Bibi was a revolutionary. A protester. A fighter. And she believed in justice before anything else. I feel her legacy in our blood.

You are defiant for one so small, contrary by nature and I think of how protest has made us.

How the matriarchs in our family, Grandma, Bibi, and Mama Shak too, stood with the black power movement. How they stood and fought for the right to love themselves and our fight is much the same.

Black girls like you and me walk through the world with our hands up ready to defend ourselves. I have been doing it for years now. You’ve only just begun.

Our legacy is beautiful, it's true, but they will not tell you the injustice of its necessity.

The way that our people have had to fight for the most basic of human rights and how that should never be a battle.

Some days you chant “Hey hey, ho ho, the occupations got to go!” and I am proud. I am proud to know the poetry that you are and blessed to see the way that you care. Even for nations hundreds of miles from yours.

And its funny… that you, as young as you are, could be an example of our power and our pain. Your strength mimicking that of the women before you and the need for said strength still forcing you to grow up.

Your story. Our story be beautiful. Be broken. Be black girls born into a world that does not want them. Be muslim women with spirits big enough to refuse to die. I guess what I’m saying is that I’m proud of you and I believe you to be capable of changing this world.

I take your chanting as proof.

I take your defiance as proof.

I take your care as proof that you will not go quiet into the boxes they’ve made for you.

Anaya you are my baby sister and you are my love.

One of the lives for which I am most grateful.

I spend my time attempting to prepare this world for a girl like you. Attempting to make it kinder and more worthy.

Painting, printing and writing poetry to soften their hearts and get them used to dope Black, Muslim girls like us.

Your name means care and I attempt to reciprocate. To teach you to fly because fighting is not all there is for you.

So chant your protest songs.

Call for the justice that we’re owed and don’t forget the warriors in your bloodline.

Or the poetry, power, and pain of the way that we’ve all learned to stand up and stand strong.