Her Offences, Her Weapons. Her Power

Teya (Josh Ziregbe)

by Love Omife

Brown skin, kinky hair

Cold eyes, blank stare

Yes, you just might have guessed right

A black woman…

A mad black woman

No, she wasn’t always this way

Like every other, she ushered into the world totally ignorant of hate and bias

Yet, like every other, she was taught her gender by default makes her an eternal subordinate

And the color of her skin only makes her prey to the rest of the world

An inferior sex, an inferior race

Certainly not much she could do to protect herself

They only thought her good to clean floors and wipe their babies’ snots

And always ever seen as ‘underqualified’ to join their book clubs and awareness campaigns, (‘could she even read and speak coherently?’) They always thought

Yet there was no surprise when she went to rehab and self-help centers

And what ached her more was she couldn’t protect her children either

They were ‘the bullied’ often suffering the penalty for ‘the bullies’

Their bags were always rummaged first when things got missing, and were always ‘accused’ of cheating on a test, when they scored high marks

Wearing hoodies and working lone on the street already made them ‘crime personified’

And this sheer inequity, cost her her only son

Her heart burnt with fury, sadness and rage

But mostly rage

Now she has decided to fight for herself and stand up for others

Not in a way that she could ever be held responsible

But with her only offences now turned weapons;

Her black skin and kinky hair.

Her femininity

Because no one fights a black woman without being defeated.

Especially one who has been a victim of societal ills and is now on fire to make it right.



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