It might be topical to talk about Kamala Harris breaking a glass ceiling, but lest we forget that strong women have been smashing glass ceilings for a long time and will undoubtedly do so for a long time to come.
The first photo is of my grandmother, Madam Ellen Blankson, born August 10, 1932, and dressed in traditional Queen Mother regalia, she would have turned 88 this week. Grandma was a strong, intelligent women, who spoke all of the traditional dialects outside the royal house and before the paramount chiefs of Cape Coast in Ghana. She was God loving, entrepreneurial, and sent all of her children to study internationally, by her foresight providing the tools to equip all of us for the future; she made sure that we all know our history, and where it is that we come from.
The second photo is of my daughter, my mother's daughter, my grandmother's daughter, my aunties' daughter, and my father's daughter (my children are my family's children). Also born on August 10, and dressed as my princess, she turned 4 years old this week. Blaise Ellen Akua Coker as she is called, is named after grandma, speaks English and Arabic, and usually makes far more sense than most of us; like her grandmother before her she too is destined to blaze a trail of her own. She will always be a child of two worlds, I am grateful for this, and pray for her to live long and prosper.
And so while Kamala Harris strides onward and upward like the Buffalo Soldiers before her, lest we forget that alongside everyone is at least one good woman, who has smashed her own glass ceiling, and whose face we all carry, as has been the case time immemorial.
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