Saturday, December 10, 2005
geyser glacier lover
I read and I read and I read and I search and I read about things that touch and curl the insides I have left after long days of finding what I thought I wouldnt find. The accounts of the oppressed, the journals of the hated and the words of the revolutionaries. Black women who fight to live in a world where they are told to die. And I come upon the words of Assata Shakur as she sits waiting for the final judgement which will send her to jail for a sentence unworthy of the crime. Echoing in my head, I wonder what this woman, who changed her name to disembody the slavery that shaped her past, has to tell me that may shape how I ought to live my life. I don't agree with her version but I do with her mission; to free herself of those vices that keep her from happiness. She writes about the struggle her and her lover face; should they express their love when the possibility of creating a child who will have no free mother nor father could come from the act?
says Kamau " We can't gaurantee our children will ever have a future in a world like this. Struggling is the only guarantee our children will ever have for a future. You may never have another chance to have a child"
"I have to think...my mind was screaming..who would take care of my baby? Since I was a teenager I had always said that the world was too horrible to bring another human being into. And a black child. We see our children frustrated at best. Noses pressed against windows, looking in, and at worst, we see them die from drugs or oppression, shot down by police or wasted away in jail. What had my ancestors thought when they brought their babies into this world, only to see them flogged and raped, bought and sold.."
Her cry echos that of a great deal of my peers. To bring a child into a world of such pain seems selfish and foolish. But her answer, her answer brings me hope Not because i believe in creating babies without parents, or children who are products of ambition, but rather because I see resistance when no hope exists.
"I'm gonna live as hard as I can and as full as I can until I die. And i'm not letting these parasites, these oppressors, these greedy racist swine make me kill my children in my mind, before they are even born. I'm gonna live and Im going to love Kamau, and, if a child comes from that union, I'm going to rejoice. Because our children are out futures and i believe in the future and in the strength and rightness of our struggle.."
Can I hear an amen? ¶ 3:12 PM
says Kamau " We can't gaurantee our children will ever have a future in a world like this. Struggling is the only guarantee our children will ever have for a future. You may never have another chance to have a child"
"I have to think...my mind was screaming..who would take care of my baby? Since I was a teenager I had always said that the world was too horrible to bring another human being into. And a black child. We see our children frustrated at best. Noses pressed against windows, looking in, and at worst, we see them die from drugs or oppression, shot down by police or wasted away in jail. What had my ancestors thought when they brought their babies into this world, only to see them flogged and raped, bought and sold.."
Her cry echos that of a great deal of my peers. To bring a child into a world of such pain seems selfish and foolish. But her answer, her answer brings me hope Not because i believe in creating babies without parents, or children who are products of ambition, but rather because I see resistance when no hope exists.
"I'm gonna live as hard as I can and as full as I can until I die. And i'm not letting these parasites, these oppressors, these greedy racist swine make me kill my children in my mind, before they are even born. I'm gonna live and Im going to love Kamau, and, if a child comes from that union, I'm going to rejoice. Because our children are out futures and i believe in the future and in the strength and rightness of our struggle.."
Can I hear an amen? ¶ 3:12 PM
