Allow Me to Re-Introduce Myself...

As the church-bred choir girl with a Jamaican upbringing, I learned early that it was a sin to believe in horoscopes, witches and Black magic. Dressed in a silk blazer and skirt ensemble with the white hat and matching netting enveloping her face, Sister Gardener lowered her dark eyes at me and reminded me in a nurturing scowl that it was against God's will to try and predict the future and believe in the 12 universal zodiac signs that exist among the billion + in our global population. For fear of the church woman's wrath agreed and vowed never to bring it up again. That is, until the horoscope page lay open on the seat beside me as I rode the bus to work today.

"Now is the perfect time for you to leave an imprint on eternity, Scorpio. Within the next 6 weeks you will leave your mark"

Me? An imprint? I'd always said that if I had to decide between the ability to influence and being rich, I'd choose to be influential, but that was a secret I told myself. This desire to influence lingered between my sentences and hid within the stitching of my clothes. This was my little big secret. So what does it mean when some random arbitrary horoscope gives me a message that I had shared only with myself?

It means that the many speaking engagements that I have planned for September will be heard and echo through generations, if I prepare right. It means that I no longer have a crutch. I can't cry about being poor, because I just got a job that propelled me to the middle class. I can't talk about dropping out of high school when I have 4.0 GPA in university. I can't talk about lack of access to opportunities when people are telling me that my name is falling out of the mouths of people I don't know and have never met, at meetings that I didn't even know were happening. I have received emails from people who say that they Googled me (say what!?!).

When I thank my mentors, they no longer accept the thanks. "My pleasure" has been replaced with, "Oh please, you did that yourself". I've been forced to stand on my own two feet and not to cling to the coattails of the people I admire.

When I speak and people listen. When I act and they watch me. I now exist among a new circle of people.

I'm a gatekeeper now. I don't know how I will do this job because there is no job description. It's interpretive and relies on one's immediate surroundings. Until today, it never occurred to me that gatekeepers existed in every community and professional industry in the world. We guard a territory that many people are not privy to, for an array of (superficial) reasons. They aren't intelligent enough, they're the wrong class, wear the wrong clothes, are connected to the wrong people, etc. etc. Behind the gates grow health on plush patches of fertile soil surrounded by privilege and opportunity. Behind these gates lies power.

Without being asked, I have been placed in front of these gates with the other leaders, trailblazers, and prodigies.

I am a gatekeeper. This kind of privilege simultaneously enrages and empowers me. Still I must accept it and use this power and share it with others. Allow me to re-introduce myself.

My name is feminist-womanist woman of colour, and I am a gatekeeper.