EBPN
I have the pleasure to work with and teach some really interesting students, and a few of them always send me interesting readings, by e-mail. I would like to share some of them here.
Heather and Kimani, both seniors at Knoxville College always send me provocative and interesting readings. This obituary that Heather sent me was particularly moving. While I know, thank the Lord, that it is not entirely true, it does provide us with quite an interesting perspective of ourselves as black women. And I celebrate the fact that many of us are "still here."
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
for
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 b....ch 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 enough.
She
died from castration everytime 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
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