| The Strong Black Woman Is Dead... |
On August 15, 1999, at 11:55 p.m.,
while struggling with the reality of being a human instead of a myth, the strong
black woman passed away.
Medical sources say she died of natural causes, but those who knew her know she
died from being silent when she should have been screaming, milling when she
should have been raging, from being sick and not wanting anyone to know because
her pain might inconvenience them.
She died from an overdose of other people clinging to her when she didn't even
have energy for herself. She died from loving men who didn't love themselves and
could only offer her a crippled reflection. She died from raising children alone
and from not being able to do a complete job.
She died from the lies her grandmother told her mother and her mother told her
about life, men & racism. She died from being sexually abused as a child and
having to take that truth everywhere she went every day of her life,
exchanging the humiliation for guilt and back again.
She died from being battered by someone who claimed to love her and she allowed
the battering to go on to show she loved him too. She died from asphyxiation,
coughing up blood from secrets she kept trying to burn away instead of allowing
herself the kind of nervous breakdown she was entitled to, but only white girls
could afford.
She died from being responsible, because she was the last rung on the ladder and
there was no one under her she could dump on. The strong black woman is dead.
She died from the multiple births of children she never really wanted but was
forced to have by the strangling morality of those around her.
She died from being a mother at 15 and a grandmother at 30 and an ancestor at
45. She died from being dragged down and sat upon by un-evolved women posing as
sisters. She died from pretending the life she was living was a Kodak moment
instead of a 20th century, post-slavery nightmare! She died from tolerating Mr.
Pitiful, just to have a man around the house. She died from lack of orgasms
because she never learned what made her body happy and no one took the time to
teach her and sometimes, when she found arms that were tender, she died because
they belonged to the same gender.
She died from sacrificing herself for everybody and everything when what she
really wanted to do was be a singer, a dancer, or some magnificent other. She
died from lies of omission because she didn't want to bring the black man down.
She died from race memories of being snatched and raped and snatched and sold
and snatched and bred and snatched and whipped and snatched and worked to death.
She died from tributes from her counterparts who should have been matching her
efforts instead of showering her with dead words and empty songs. She died from
myths that would not allow her to show weakness without being chastised by the
lazy and hazy. She died from hiding her real feelings until they became hard and
bitter enough to invade her womb and breasts like angry tumors. She died from
always lifting something from heavy boxes to refrigerators.
The strong black woman is dead. She died from the punishments received from
being honest about life, racism & men.
She died from being called a bitch for being verbal, a dyke for being assertive
and a whore for picking her own lovers. She died from never being enough of what
men wanted, or being too much for the men she wanted. She died from being too
black and died again for not being black enuff. She died from castration every
time somebody thought of her as only a woman, or treated her like less than a
man.
She died from being misinformed about her mind, her body & the extent of her
royal capabilities. She died from knees pressed too close together because
respect was never part of the foreplay that was being shoved at her. She died
from loneliness in birthing rooms and aloneness in abortion centers. She died of
shock in courtrooms where she sat, alone, watching her children being legally
lynched.
She died in bathrooms with her veins busting open with self-hatred and neglect.
She died in her mind, fighting life, racism, & men, while her body was carted
away and stashed in a human warehouse for the spiritually mutilated. And
sometimes when she refused to die, when she just refused to give in she was
killed by the lethal images of blonde hair, blue eyes and flat butts, rejected
by the O.J.'s, the Quincy's, & the Poitiers.
Sometimes, she was stomped to death by racism & sexism, executed by hi-tech
ignorance while she carried the family in her belly, the community on her head,
and the race on her back! The strong silent, talking black woman is
dead!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Or is she still alive and kicking??????????????
I know I am still here.
- Author Unknown