Heart of the Race
excerpts from Grewal et al’s “Charting the Journey”
--
‘just weeds’, she said
‘what about seeds?’
Black woman catapulted globally…
refused out of a desire to keep
value of having plenty
(relatively)
And here too
the people with power
remained silent
burn our lips
Lay down and I
struggled with it
and panic
and hurt
and fear
biggest and most lasting impact
common blood betrays me
Another black woman
Must live among tigers,
but can take time off
living alone
A new moon is coming
cycle of independence
focus in
your own future and
your life ahead of you
validation to keep
going
***
This piece is composed solely out of phrases taken randomly from “Charting the Journey: Writings by Black and Third World Women”, an anthology printed by Sheba Feminist Publishers and edited by Shabnam Grewal, Jackie Kay, Liliane Landor, Gail Lewis and Pratibha Parmar (1988). The volume is aptly described as “a contribution to the documentation of ‘Black womanhood at a specific moment in this place called Britain’”.
This is exactly the case, however, with a broad, feminist, “personal is political” agenda that includes the voices of other BIPOC women from Asia, the Caribbean, Africa, Chile and Palestine. At that time in the U.K., Black (with a capital B) was seen as a strategic political category that also included the experiences of South Asians and other minority groups from the Global South. This spawned powerful feminist coalitions and publications, including the diversification of “Spare Rib” magazine in the late 80s and early 90s.
