a Poem titled Respect by KImberlé Crenshaw: Black vaginas the hardest working vaginas in America, and still they get no respect. No vagina has done so much for this country and received so little. Really. Black vaginas built this country. It all started right here, between blueberry black, chocolate cream, honey brown, praline pecan french vanilla legs. It wasn’t the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, or the Stars and Stripes that gave birth to America. It was the Black vagina that laid the golden egg, or rather, the chattel slave. That’s right–during America’s formative years, the most valuable property it produced, the property that the entire economy was based on, the property that was mortgaged to build America was property in slaves. 12 billion dollars worth. One can’t begin to fathom it in today’s dollars. And where did it come from? Whose vaginas passed this 12 billion dollars? Whose vaginas were capitalized, colonized, and amortized all to give birth to America? Who’s vaginas have been appropriated, syndicated, deprecated, but never, ever vindicated in the process of building this country? The Black vagina, the only vagina that was less valuable when it was protected, loved, and respected than when is was open, taken, and occupied at will. And the law made it that way–black women couldn’t be raped as a matter of law during those old days. The Law Said that Rape was something that happened to white vaginas not to black ones. But those were the old days, we can rest assured. We finally got that Respect that Aretha’s been talking about all these years. Or did we? Has the black vagina received the respect she deserves even today? Is it respected when those who enter our vaginas against our will are least likely to be arrested, least likely to be prosecuted, least likely to be convicted, and when, by some miracle, they are convicted, they will receive only 1/5 the sentence of those who rape white vaginas? Is it respected when no one seems to know or care about what happens to our vaginas within our communities, right here in Harlem? Is it respected when everyone knows about the Central Park Jogger, but no one knows about the 8 other women of color raped in New York that very week, one who was gang raped, thrown down an elevator shaft and left for dead? Is the Black vagina respected when our own community readily embraces those accused of rape, and chastises women for “not having the good sense God gave her” or “having no business being up there with that man at 2:00 in the morning” or “being foolish not to know what the brother’s true intentions were?” Is it respected when politicians trip over themselves trying to be “tough on Black vaginas” by embracing punitive policies to sew up and shut down these vaginas now that our labor isn’t needed anymore? After four hundred years is THIS the RESPECT we’ve been waiting for? I don’t think so… So here’s an idea. The next time we hear ReRe belting out R>E>S>P>E>C>T, let’s reach for it, own it, proclaim it as our national anthem for Black vaginas, for all vaginas Because we know that respect goes to those who demand it, expect it, and refuse to live without it So from Harlem to Watts From Memphis to Detroit From Nairobi to Beijing From Kingston to Jerusalem Let our voice, our Demand, our Command be heard: RESPECT This Vagina!!!
Posted on: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 17:58:52 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015