In progress…

(More is to come)

Individuals desire to be known and loved, yet they fear being found unworthy. Individuals yearn to be heard and listened to, to find tangible pieces of art, and to finally see their difficulties within despair. People want to be found, and not by their own selves, they want their lives to be acknowledged, they want someone to witness their lives as they will do to the other person. But truly we can only be known perfectly by some ultimate holy creator and the rest of us on the ground continue to relearn and reinvent our identities, souls, and egos every single day. We want to be found and owned in love, yes, but when will people learn that in order for this to happen we must find our own peace of mind, alone? 

There is no we, or us in the song, “I Gotta Find Peace of Mind” written by the artist, Lauryn Hill. It is purely a self-act to find your version of what your peace of mind truly is. In strictly nine minutes, filled with a room full of strangers, Hill shares a textual analysis of the fall of her ego and her rise to respect within. Having already been declared “brainwashed” and “emotionally unstable” Hill decides to carry her own story into a room where every inch of her body is judged and watched as a Black woman. Still, despite the innate prejudice that is omnipresent toward Black women, Hill’s voice silenced every single person in that room, to hopefully, at last, be truly understood. Hill shares her story of how she once searched for wanting to belong to someone, to be owned by love, by a man, preventing her from finding her peace of mind, blinded by a false mental image (ego) caused by the world constantly telling them to belong to someone.

Lauryn Hill who not only has contributed brilliantly to the genre of neo-soul, is also a dedicated activist, who utilizes her songs to shed light on black feminism. Who doesn’t want to be wanted, right? And to be wanted doesn’t necessarily mean flashing a diamond ring, or replacing your last name with someone else’s. Though all of this, to feel wanted and be owned by love means absolutely nothing if that respect and love are not rooted from within. For Black women that can be so entirely hard, if the world already does not respect and love you. The Combahee River Collective pleads for mercy for black women, “to be recognized as human, levelly human.” From the minute Black women are born into this world they are acknowledged as having the lowest value in the power hierarchy. Facing sexism, classism, and racism all at once, Lauryn Hill sings, “To finally be in love / And know the real meaning of / A lasting relationship, not based on ownership” (Hill). At the age of 26, Hill was just learning what it meant to finally be in healthy relationship with herself. It’s sickening that this world has failed to give Black women the true love that they deserve and it becomes so powerful and poignant that it prevents Black women from even loving their selves. 

Lauryn Hill had to become a black feminist herself because the world and society will never truly love, accept, and understand black women. Hill listened once to how the world treated her, they would tell her  “…there’s no me without him” (Hill). Becoming trapped in major systems of oppression intertwining, patently Hill’s ego took over. Her ego, the false mental image that forced a desire upon her for validation and the desire to be wanted and loved, and so pressured by society to belong to someone she truly thought she was nothing. Her ego did not want to let go of her either, “Trapped in her memory/ constantly holding me” (Hill). Not only was Hill fighting against her ego, but she was also grappling with the nature of oppression, that had existed long before Hill even set foot into this world. Her life was run by her ego deeply rooted in the “racial, sexual, and class oppression” birthed by our society.