This poem was inspired by the definition of “dead letter mail” and being underappreciated as a black woman. This represents Generation F because we refuse to be silent and will fight for change.
JULY 4, 1983
Dear History,
You asked me how it was to be a
black woman in America.
I answered challenging
and you wanted me to elaborate but I
didn’t because the list is longer than
America’s list of debts.
But here is my summed-up elaboration to your question.
Being black in America is having your
whole history placed on a pull-down projector screen for everyone to see
But on the screen it only contains struggle, injustice and persecution and being
told that this pain is
equivalent to your existence and only that.
But the funny thing is
You can’t talk about it because it is an uncomfortable topic.
Being a woman in America
means not being able to
talk about certain subjects like
sexual assault and periods
in school, the workplace
and even your own home
because this also makes people uncomfortable.
Being a black woman in America
is knowing that your opinions aren’t valuable to everybody because you are in a body where your gender and race is supposed to be silent.
Being black is having your
own people swallow the slavery mentality poison that says if you have any
Eurocentric features then you are automatically beautiful.
Being a woman
is having your
own gender hate you because we live in a hegemonic patriarchal society
in which we think
we are each other’s competition.
Being a black woman
is knowing that you will have derogatory terms from both ends fly at you like a plague and somehow magically
survive it.
Being black in America
is having laws
pinned against you
such as being excluded from living in certain areas.
Being a woman in America
is having laws be created by men who most likely won’t ever get pregnant nor get periods.
Being a black woman in America
is knowing that because you are
both black and a woman
your body isn’t yours and is only meant to be hypersexualized and fetishized.
Being black in America
is knowing that you can be prosecuted or lynched even though you’re innocent.
Being a woman in America
is knowing that if you
say no to a date you can be murdered.
Being a black woman in America
is knowing that both of these things can happen to you but there will be no Amber Alerts because to them you make up the bones in the cemetery.
Being black in America
means trying to figure out
how to make sure your children aren’t
afraid of the system
even though it’s against them.
In this country being black means you will push your child into adulthood before the rest of the world can.
Being a woman in America
is teaching your son and daughter
different things as they
grow older because it was how you were also taught. It means that you are to be
emotionally abusive to your daughter so she can “mature.”
Being a black woman in America
is knowing that someday you may have
children and will have to choose between ripping out their hearts before they are three to protect them or have this country destroy them like they did to you.
Being black in America is having somebody shoot the starting pistol indicating it’s everybody’s time to run. And when you start running you know the bullet will hit you at some point even though the pistol doesn’t contain bullets.
Being black in America is having an invisible bullet on you before you’re even born and you just hope that like many others the bullet doesn’t become real.
Being a woman in America is knowing that history kept hidden the women that helped advance the feminist movement.
Being a black woman is screaming
Ain’t I a woman
when it comes to movements in the black community and the feminist movement that you decide to create the womanist movement
So your voices can be heard.
Being both a woman and black is knowing that it is 100 percent illegal to be both but never silencing your voice when it is needed the most.
There are so many unheard black women voices when it comes to struggle and injustice but also accomplishments that they never got to share with the world because of your history.
Sincerely, Ria
P.S. Being a black woman is to be in rage all the time because you are disrespected, unprotected, and neglected but despite this I wouldn’t trade my resilience I’d encountered for the world.
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