Tell me…
Tell me, did you taste the saltiness of your tears as you lay supine, feet in the stirrups, vulnerable at the hands of the gynecologist with the absence of a bedside manner? as the garish overhead lights and the sterility of the exam room reminded you of how the difference of one chromosome determined at conception, granted you with a lifetime of overwhelming medical responsibility?
Tell me, every time your foot hits the pavement of a familiar street in a town you swore you knew backwards and forwards, do you catch yourself looking anywhere but straight ahead? as strange men leer at you and perceive you as an object; as fresh meat they can’t wait to sink their unconsenting teeth into.
Tell me, do you fight a constant, losing battle against being labeled the “angry, man-hating feminazi” when vocalizing your thoughts and musings about the still very present reality of gender inequality and gender-based violence?
The glass ceiling, whose existence remains metaphorical simply because the white heterosexual man who continues to control the narrative of our society, need not be reminded of its overwhelming, omnipresence.
I am not here to sidle you with blame for the years of suffering endured by the marginalized. I’m not asking for your pity or poorly placed pleas for forgiveness. I am certainly not asking for your opinion…
Consider this an invitation to look inward, to question your contributions-both conscious and subconscious-to the perpetuation of injustice that rests heavily and unrelentingly on the shoulders of the unceasingly oppressed.
Let us shout angrily from the rooftops, let us process our hardships through poetry and prose, written and spoken word. Let us lyricize the heartache and the trauma suffered at the hands of a world that never seems quite big enough to allow us ALL a seat at the table.
You can’t change the injustices of yesteryear, nor can you single-handedly eradicate prejudice and discrimination. All we ask is that you grant us the space to grieve what was never ours…
…and what may never be.