Poem: Dominique Wilson - Black Queen

Submission poem from Dominique Wilson, a sophomore at the University of Kansas. 

BLACK QUEEN

Am I supposed to stand here and ask “Aint I a woman?”

Well I won’t.

That was Sojourner’s Truth, not mine. It’s not like you can’t  tell I’m a woman? Right? Or is my skin too dark, and not light enough according to your European oriented standards.

I shall not overcome because I have already overcame, that is why you can understand me. I am above you all, because I know why the cage bird sings. Who do you think was there to witness Uncle Sam give Uncle Tom his 40 acres and a mule surrounded by hundreds of trees that bore strange fruit? Who was slapped and shackled the hardest with the religious book of restraint that our oppressors used to justify them raping and pillaging our land and keeping us enslaved? Who?

Me of course, but you’ll never know it because of what the world tells you. The world tells me to be pretty. So I try. Hair weaves to look more European and nails done by Koreans, I am starting to look a little less and less like a human being.

My anti-Anglo Saxon thighs and anti-white hips that are too wild, I mean wide, stretch far beyond the limits of your imagination. No, I didn’t say Beyonce. Please pay attention, my eyes are here, exactly where they’re supposed to be, not in my ass.

I don’t blame your sexist racist eyes for wandering, the world has reduced me into nothing more than a Nicki Minaj, a modern day Sarah Baartman, but I refuse to tell them to kiss my black ass. I have too much class.

My blossoming bosom and my black girl backside wield the power to heal the world. My curves induce jungle fever, while I sometimes suffer from the dreadful angry black girl syndrome. I am sick. And there’s no cure, because even just a little black makes you black, and a little less pure.

My skin is a tone of a Majestic mahogany, a Completely Complex Carmel complexion, Beautiful and Black and full of Boldness, Sun blessed from birth, No tan needed, a Symbol of Strength and perseverance, Say it loud I’m Black and I’m Proud. But why do I have to be loud? As always, Loud and Ghetto, right? As if ghetto was an adjective and not a noun. You stupid idiot.  As if ghetto meant low class and not hell.

You know what? I am ghetto. And I am the black female Jesus. I am Atlas holding the world in my fist. And sometimes, sometimes, I am someone resisting to exist. I am nothing. I am a mockery. I am funny. I am an obnoxious fat black girl from the hood.  FYI I’m not really fat but we’re all fat according to America. I am everything but something good. I am the modern day BLACK queen.

Love Harlee