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(Warning: the following poem contains graphic language. I'm sure that most of our posters are smart enough to figure out that the author of this poem had her speaker reference the racist terms that have been used against her in order to decry racism, and to figure out that this poem condemns racist attitudes, but I still wanted to put some kind of a disclaimer on this one for those who are, as I am, sensitive to racial epithets in any context.)
"I Used to Think"
I used to think I can’t be a poet because a poem is everything you can be in one moment speaking with lightening protest unveiling a fiery intellect or letting words drift feather-soft into the ears of strangers who will suddenly understand my beautiful and tortured soul.
But I’ve spent my life as a black girl, a nappy-headed, no-haired, fat lipped big-bottomed Black girl and the poem will surely come out wrong like me. And I don’t want everyone looking at me. If I could be a cream coloured lovely with gypsy curls, someone’s pecan dream and sweet sensation, I’d be poetry in motion without saying a word and wouldn’t have to make sense if I did. If I were beautiful, I could be angry and cute instead of an evil, pouting mammy bitch a nigger woman, passed over, conquested and passed over, a nigger woman to do it in the bushes. My mother tells me I used to run home crying that I wanted to be light like my sisters She shook her head and told me there was nothing wrong with my colour. She didn’t tell me I was pretty (so my head wouldn’t swell up) Black girls can’t afford to have illusions of grandeur not ass-kicking, too-loud-laughing mean and loose black girls. And even though in Afrika I was mistaken for someone’s fine sister or cousin, or neighbour down the way even though I swore never again to walk with my head down ashamed never to care that those people who celebrate the popular brand of beauty don’t see me it still matters. Looking for a job, it matters. Standing next to my lover when someone light gets that ‘she ain’t nothing come home with me’ it matters. But it’s not so bad now I can laugh about it, trade stories and write poems about all those put downs rage and hiding, I’m through waiting for minds to change The ‘60s didn’t put me on a throne and as many years as I’ve been Black like ebony Black like the night I have seen in the mirror and the eyes of my sisters that pretty is the woman in darkness who flowers with loving.
—Chirlane McCray
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