minority voices

2/22/09

o que o voce fazendo?

This is what I'm doing.

I went to the AWP Conference last week, so I've been reading these journals. I went to the biggest book fair I've ever seen. 800 tables. 1 table was manned by black people. 1. And 6 or 7 times while I was browsing--I walked by every single table--a nice white lady or two would say--Do you write, and I'd say yes and she would say, "we're looking for marginalized voices," we want to give voice to the women of color (like you), the apostrophized parenthetical. I don't know if you know this about me, ya'll, but I'm black and my snatch is black too. Mostly. Except for the pink park--she's red when she's bleeding.

So I'm reading thee journals, and all of the poems by black women are about erasure and rubbing out the blackness, combating the Bulest Eye Syndrome--violently fighting back. We're ( we meaning the African American women of color) are forced to fight the actions of oppressors 'cause silence still equals consent. I'm so sick of the top tier.