About a year ago I revisited the Isis character and started a new series of books and eBooks featuring her adventures. My plan was to create a series of stories featuring a positive Black female character that taught a good moral message. But some people want to take my good intentions down a Road to Hell.
Some say I shouldn’t have Isis as a Christian, and that a New
Heliopolitan goddess can’t serve God. But as Isis always says in her stories,
that’s her religion. She does not worship the gods of New Heliopolis. In her
eyes she’s just a member of the family. She wears the ankh necklace as a way to
honor her mother and father as stated in the Bible.
The way I see it no one knows how they’re gonna come into
this world. It’s the one thing none of us can control. And Isis like the rest
of us who were born of human women is trying to make the best of the situation
she came into. She learned Christianity growing up and lives to be a light that
inspires others. Isis wants to do God’s work, not be worshipped as a goddess.
To that end, she uses her New Heliopolitan powers towards helping others on
Earth. She serves the people, the people do not serve her.
Others say I’m promoting the worship of false pagan gods. I never intended for Isis
to be a way to promote pagan religion or the worship of any god or gods. I
originally designed the character to be just like comic book superheroes such
as Marvel Comics’ Thor, Xena: Warrior Princess or DC Comics’ Wonder Woman. Fun
fantasy that kids and adults of all ages could read and enjoy.
And then there are those that say Isis doesn’t appear Black
on the covers. These color struck individuals say she isn’t brown enough. These
skintone debaters want to bring their asinine Darkskin/Lightskin argument into
my work. To those detractors: I say Black is who you are on the inside whether
your skin is as black as coal or as white as an eggshell, it’s the content of
your character that makes you Black, not the color of your skin.
I want all my readers to know the Isis I write is a Black
woman. My Isis was born in Nubia, a kingdom in Africa. Throughout the stories I
write about her golden skin. Golden as in golden brown like my own skin color.
She has kinky/curly chestnut hair, which is described by other characters like
Raheema Sanders as NATURAL or NAPPY. BLACK character traits. In the first Isis
story Isis, she clearly states that Black people in America have skin her color
and hair her texture. And the main reason she identifies with the struggles of
Black people because she has experienced slavery as a child in Nubia and racism
and discrimination as an adult in America.
No, the women who look like little black girls today in the
media are Halle Berry, Beoynce, Nicki Minaj, Precious, The Real Housewives of
Atlanta, The Basketball Wives, and the numerous girls and women who lose face
as they shake their butts twerking on YouTube. These whores are hardly what any
decent mother or father would consider a role model for an adult, let alone a
little Black girl.
I believe Black women deserve better than whores as role
models for their children. They deserve a character who represents not only the
beauty of the Black queens of the great ancient African civilizations, but honors
the intelligence, courage, and grace of our great contemporary Black Ladies
like Betty Shabazz, Coretta Scott King, and who has the passion for knowledge
like our great Black female educators like Mary McLeod Bethune and Ida B.
Wells.
When I created Isis I wanted to create a positive character
for little Black girls to imagine themselves as. Someone with natural hair like
theirs, and shared the same experiences little Black girls and Black women had
in life. Someone who told their stories and had adventures they could relate to
and identify with. Someone they could look at and say was a beautiful Black
woman like they were.
I knew every little girl regardless of race wants to be a
princess when they’re little, even little Black girls. And I wanted to give
little Black girls someone who was a REAL princess from a REAL royal bloodline,
not a fake one like Disney’s Tiana. Someone who could connect them with both their
African-and African-American history and heritage. Someone who would show them
that their Blackness is beautiful and that Africa was a place filled with great
kingdoms like Egypt, and its sister nation Nubia. The Main reason why Isis is
Nubian is because she comes from Egypt’s sister nation. As the daughter of a Nubian
slave Mother and a New Heliopolitan Pharaoh, she’s still a princess…in the
technical sense.
It disheartens me that some people want to take the stories
I write and twist them to fit their personal, religious, and political agendas.
I find it funny that the very same Christian people who would give me grief
about the Isis series would let their kids read Harry Potter books or play with
Monster High dolls. They’re fantasy based on pagan concepts as well. But no one
looks that deeply into those series. (I’m a big Monster High fan and never miss
a video. Torelai is where I got the inspiration for D’lilah.)
I’m a Christian who believes in Jesus, God, and the Holy
Trinity. And I grew up reading comics about Mighty Norse gods, Amazonian Wonder
Women, Dark Knights, Boy Wonders, Supermen, American Super-Soldiers, Amazing
Human Spiders, Iron Men in flying armored suits and Hulking big green monsters
and I never once thought it blasphemous. I knew none of the stuff in comic
books was real. It was just an escape that helped make life in a rundown one-bedroom
apartment with four other people in the South Bronx a little easier.
If it weren’t for comic books I read in my brother’s
collection over 30 years ago I wouldn’t be a writer today. And the reason why I
write the Isis series is to give little Black girls the heroine that looks like
them. The way I see it, if we had more characters like Isis in the media who
present Black and African history and culture in a positive fashion then maybe
more little Black girls wouldn’t choose the White doll when they go shopping or
go out to sew an Asian woman’s dyed blonde hair in their head. If we had more
characters like Isis little Black girls would be so proud of their own
Blackness that they’d love their own natural hair and go out and pick up the
Black doll up at the toy store.
That's what movies are for entertainment an escape from reality....
ReplyDeleteI think this is that kid again...
ReplyDeleteA long time ago before there were movies, there were books. And Books were the only way people were able to entertain themselves and escape from reality.
Y'know Books are where most movies actually come from. If you read more of them you'll broaden your imagination and see the world differently. How about you try one of mine?