There is a difference between being an American and an African-American. There is an obvious difference between a man and a woman. But here with my thought, I am here to say today that I am an African woman living in this American and no, it is not an easy walk in the park. But instead, it's an incessant race for my life, mind, body, and heart. But first let me start...by introducing myself.
Everyone calls me Reggy, spelled R-E-G-G-Y, no I-E. But when I step to the mike and speak poetically, I become Justified Insanity. But my real name, my full, birth, gov'ment alias is Regina, which is Latin for "Queen."
And my ancestors were once queens of their African nations and were of great value to their people and their land, and the power used for the greater good lied within the palms of their hands. But before they knew it, their hands hands were shackled and shipped off to some land that Columbus was credited for findinf after exiling the Nativr Americans out of their own homeland. AND, the reservations became plantations and my former African queens were forned to work from sunrise to sunset; being stripped of their culture, value, pride, and humanity. A new distorted vanity was born, along with the new breed of slave products, created by the evil slave masters who raped and beat and raped beat the African woman of her self-worth, efficacy, and beauty. Displaced blame found a haven among the African Black woman, as they laid drowning in fear, tears, janky sweaty body fluids and denigration, whils he, who threw himself upon her, rids himself of the burden of adultery. Century after century after century, the dominant ones convinced themselves and their society that we asked for it and that that was louder than our cries and screams of pain and mercy.
So what of the Black woman's manifesto? According to Frances Beale, I am living in double jeopardy, being a woman of color naturally of this country. People spend their time trying to define me while I spend my time trying to find me.
We all breathe, hunger, thirst, laugh, and cry the same way and we [humans] all bleed one color regardless of our skin tones, but I do not have the same benefits package. Were we all not created in the image of God? Then why do you continue to beat me down with this verbal rod?
Loose, incompetent, belligerent, mammy, sapphire, jezebel, workehorse, tragic mulatto, permissive, she-devil Hottentot Venus, lustful, hopeless...sadly, this list goes on.
Blame it on the vanity and I'm the nasty one because you were my oppressor? You were the real harlot and history's first pimp? Yet, I'm just another Black woman. This is [supposedly] my history.
So today, I stand up tall a strong Black woman. WIth no idea what sex feels like, but that's okay. I break the molds of societal standards and that's just okay. Because I use what I know and I know what to use. I don't remember Miss Sarah Jones letting any revolution happening in between her thighs, so what makes them think that it will happen in between mine?
You may call me by my name to my face,but the second I leave your existence, you consider me a Kizzy Kinte with a diluted illusion of freedom in my mind, as you analyze the structure of my backside.
The literary madness derived from the sadness and confusion of the history of my African queen ancestors and you have the audacity to ask me, "How dare she...?" The answer is simple; you can tell me how I ought to look, act, think, and portray myself as a Black woman. Just let me know when you become one.
