black women

#sheofthewildwrites – hair

| Sheree

Day 7 – my hair feels like

:: A black woman’s body was never hers alone::
Fannie Lou Hamer

Is your hair real? she asks. I sit next to her on the stationary bikes.
Sweating.

I’ve seen them doing that kind of thing along the beach in Jamaica.
I say nothing.

Not to people like you but tourists. You know they pay for it.
I stare forward peddle faster.

Obviously, she’s an older woman who likes to talk. Maybe
the gym is a social occasion for her. I try not to judge.

Did it take a while for you to get it done?
I want to tell her that this is my hair. All my own hair.

Do you wash it?
Really, lady? You’re asking me if I wash my hair?

I want to ask her would she ask
the same questions to a white woman?

I focus on my reflection, and then catch her moving in.
Oh can I touch it?

No! You can’t. I find my voice.
She looks outraged and confused. But why?

Seriously?
I want to say

because I’m not an animal in a zoo
because I’m not your property
because this is my body.

But I say nothing. I move away and if anyone’s
watching it looks like I’m being rude.

#dreadscapes #blackwomensbodies #canitouchit #selflove

red

| Sheree

For me, at the moment, red signifies anger. There’s a fire burning in my belly, it’s been stoked by my time away at Shifting Loyalties this last week.

My forthcoming e-book with Culture Matters is an exploration of this anger. My anger at how black Woman are treated in society. How we end up at the bottom of the pile in terms of being treated with decency, respect and love.

This piece is part of this collection.

‘Death by persons unknown’

Pain provides the common language of humanity; it extends humanity to the dispossessed and, in turn, remedies the indifference of the callous.
– Saidiya V. Hartman

(Picture the scene).
It’s a Sunday afternoon
& the bees are busy hovering
around blousy peonies,
at a church picnic.
The crowd moves in closer as the fire’s lit.
(Look at them gathering, working up a sweat, working up a frenzy as the barbecue takes hold).
They linger in the smell of flesh,
in the smell of blood.
The only shade is thrown by the kill;
the swinging charred remains of a black body.
(Try to shift your gaze).
From the hanging meat to the sea of red-faced, smiling white people hungry for violence fed on a diet of hate for generations.
There’ll be a photograph produced of this social ritual. You might receive a postcard making
the past very present.
& if you’re feeling it,
it could burn a hole in your heart.