Open Mic...

The Strong Black Woman is Dead!

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, without the slightest bit of hoopla. Medical sources say that she died of natural causes, but those who knew and used her know she died from: being silent when she should have been screaming, milling when she should have been raging, being sick and not wanting anyone to know because her pain might inconvenience them. An overdose of other people clinging on to her when she didn't even have energy for herself.

She died from loving men who didn't love themselves and could only offer her a crippled reflection.

She died from raising children alone and for not doing a complete job.

She died from the lies her grandmother told her mother and her mother told her about life, men and racism.

She died from being sexually abused 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.

She died from being battered by someone who claimed to love her and she allowed the battering to go on to show she luvvvvvvvvv'd him too.

She died from asphyxiation, coughing up blood from secrets she kept trying to burn away instead of allowing herself the kind of nervous break-down she was entitled to, but only white girls could afford.

She died from being responsible, because she was the last rung on the ladder and there was no one under hershe could dump on.

The strong black woman is dead.

She died from the multiple births of children she never really wanted but was forced to have by the strangling morality of those around her.

She died from being a mother at 15 and a grandmother at 30 and an ancestor at 45.

She died from being dragged down and sat upon by un-evolved women posing as sisters.

She died from pretending the life she was living was a Kodak moment instead of a 20th century, post-slavery nightmare!!!

She died from tolerating Mr. Pitiful, just to have a man around the house.

She died from 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, she died because they belonged to the same gender.

She died from sacrificing herself for everybody and everything when what she really wanted to do was be a singer, a dancer, or some magnificent other.

She died from lies of omission because she didn't want to bring the black man down.

She died from race memories of being snatched and snatched and raped and snatched and sold and snatched and bred and snatched and whipped and snatched and worked to death.

She died from tributes from her counterparts who should have been matching her efforts instead of showering her with dead words and empty songs.

She died from myths that would not allow her to show weakness without being chastised by the lazy and hazy.

She died from hiding her real feelings until they became monstrously hard and bitter enough to invade her womb and breasts like angry tumors.

She died from always lifting something from heavy boxes to refrigerators.

The strong black woman is dead.

She died from the punishments received from being honest about life, racism and men.

She died from being called a bitch for being verbal, a dyke for being assertive and a whore for picking her own lovers.

She died from never being enough of what men wanted, or being too much for the men she wanted.

She died from being too black and died again for not being black enuff.

She died from castration every time somebody thought of her as only a woman, or treated her like less than a man.

She died from 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.

She died from loneliness in birthing rooms and aloneness in abortion centers.

She died of shock in court rooms where she sat, alone, watching her children being legally lynched.

She died in bathrooms with her veins busting open with self-hatred and neglect.

She died in her mind, fighting life, racism, and men, while her body was carted away and stashed in a human warehouse for the spiritually mutilated.

And sometimes when she refused to die, when she just refused to give in she was killed by the lethal images of blonde hair, blue eyes and flat butts, rejected to death by the O.J.'s , the Quincey's, and the Poitier's.

Sometimes, she was stomped to death by racism and sexism, executed by hi-tech ignorance while she carried the family in her belly, the community on her head, and the race on her back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The strong silent, s**t-talking black woman is dead!

Or is she still alive and kicking?

Author: Laini Mataka