of a white woman who came to the group for Women of
Color
only
her grief cut us into guilt while we clutched the straw
of
this tiny square inch we have which we need
so desperately when we need so
much more
We talked her into leaving
which took 10 minutes of our precious
60
Those legion white Lesbians whose feelings are hurt
because we have a
Lesbians of Color Potluck
once a month for 2 hours
without them
Those
tears of the straight woman
because we kicked out her boyfriend at the
Lesbians only
poetry reading where no microphone was provided
& the
room was much too small for all of us
shouting that we were
imperialists
though I had spent 8 minutes trying to explain
to her that an
oppressed people
cannot oppress their oppressor
She ignored me
charged
into the room weeping & storming
taking up 9 minutes of our precious tiny
square inch
Ah those tears
which could be jails, graves, rapists, thieves,
thugs
those tears which are so puffed up with inappropriate grief
Those
women who are used to having their tears work
rage at us
when they
don't
We are not real Feminists they say
We do not love women
I yell
back with a wet face
_Where are our jobs? Our apartments?_
_Our voices in
parliament or congress?_
_Where is our safety from beatings, from
murder?_
_You cannot even respect us to allow us_
_60 uninterrupted
minutes for ourselves_
Your tears are chains
Feminism is the right of
each woman
to claim her own life her own time
her own interrupted 60
hours
60 days
60 years
No matter how sensitive you are
if you are
white
you are
No matter how sensitive you are
if you are a man
you
are
We who are not allowed to speak have the right
to define our terms our
turf
These facts are not debatable
Give us our inch
& we'll hand
you a hanky
for MAV & DENISE, who guarded the door after the incident at the Lesbian reading & thus, didn't get to hear the poetry
| AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Born Nov. 7, 1946 off reservation in San Francisco of a Menominee father & a Lithuanian/Alsace-Lorraine mother Self-educated Artist as well as writer Author of _Not Vanishing_ and contributor to many anthologies... Indigenous Land & Treaty Rights Activist, working for the freedom of Leonard Peltier, the Dine Nation at Big Mountain, the Mohawk Nation at Kanehsatake & various other Native Rights causes ...Make words, not war! Date: Wed, 26 Jan 1994 20:40:39 -0800 (PST) |
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