***but we all have had our blackness and femininity de-emphasized

Your question is similar to "what about white history month?"

Whiteness is promoted in every aspect of western living.

The fact that we reason and spell "RASTAFARI SPEAKS" in english and not amharic or kiswahili is proof enough that we already acknowledge and live within whiteness.

Lets give blackness some airtime.

-peace always***

I ran into this contradiction a couple weeks ago at a Haitian Voudoun ceremony for the Saint/Lwa/Orisha Santa Barbara Africana/Erzulie Dandor/Oya. Some of the participants were irritated that I kept refering to her only as Oya and rejected the fact that she could be represented by a white women(they didn't represent her that way but they kept insisting she could be during our discussion beforehand). When I see them at the next ceremony I will be sure to reference what you said in this post to explain my discomfort in accepting what they were proposing.

"White history month"...Great metaphore.