The Death Of The Strong Black Woman
*** Author Unknown ****
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 |
| Being misinformed about her mind, her body and 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 |
| Being a mother at 15 and a grandmother at 30 and an ancestor at 45 |
| Being dragged down and sat upon by UN-evolved women posing as sisters |
| Being called a bitch for being verbal, a dyke for being assertive and a whore for picking her own lovers |
| Being too black and died again for not being black enough |
| Never being enough of what men wanted, or being too much for the men she wanted |
The strong black woman is dead. She died from:
| Raising children alone and for not being able to do a complete |
| Sacrificing herself for everybody and everything when what she really wanted to do was be a singer, a dancer, or some magnificent other |
| Pretending the life she was living was a Kodak moment instead of a 20th century, post-slavery nightmare |
| Hiding her real feelings until they became hard and bitter enough to invade her womb and breasts like angry tumors |
| Loving men who didn't love themselves and could only offer her a crippled reflection |
| Tolerating Mr. Pitiful, just to have a man and the house |
| Always lifting something from heavy boxes to refrigerators |
| Belonging to the same gender |
The strong black woman is dead. She died from:
| Lies her grandmother told her mother and her mother told her about life, men & racism |
| The punishments received from being honest about life, racism & men |
| Lies of omission because she didn't want to bring the black man down |
| Assaut and battery by someone who claimed to love her and she allowed the battering to go on to show she loved him too |
| Sexual abuse 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 |
| The multiple births of children she never really wanted but was forced to have by the strangling morality of those around her |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| Castration every time somebody thought of her as only a woman, or treated her like less than a man |
| Tributes from her counterparts who should have been matching her efforts instead of showering her with dead words and empty songs |
| Myths that would not allow her to show weakness without being chastised by the lazy and hazy |
| 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 |
| An overdose of other people clinging to her when she didn't even have energy for herself. |
| Responsibilities - 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:
| In birthing rooms and abortion centers without emotional or physical support | ||||
| In courtrooms where she sat, alone, watching her children being legally lynched | ||||
| In bathrooms with her veins busting open with self-hatred and neglect | ||||
| In her mind, fighting life racism, & men, while her body was carted away and stashed
in a human warehouse for the spiritually mutilated
|
The strong silent, talking black woman is dead! Or is she still alive and kicking?