Poetry page/Madison's Poet Laureate, Fabu
These Women of Gorgeous Colors
These Women of Gorgeous Colors
| Who will love and respect The women of gorgeous colors Luscious dusky dark to mango ripen The African American woman Golden flame The Native and Asian American woman Bronze, beige and ivory The Hispanic American woman…. This poem was written for the women of gorgeous colors who I watched and admired all my life from a little girl to an adult woman. These are women who are more than just their skin color; true enough, but women whose skins are also wonderfully beautiful. Being African, Asian, Native and Latina American means that your vivid skin is your first contact with a country dominated by the beauty standards of those who are monochromatic white. How well I remember, as a girl child, when my skin color was ridiculed and despised. I still have the memory of our extended family gathered around the black and white TV watching The Miss America Beauty Pageant. I couldn’t have been much more than five when I announced, “When I grow up, I going to be Miss America.” Folks began laughing that harsh laughter that only comes from ethnic groups trying to insist that white dominance doesn’t hurt, not really. Before my thoughts could question why, a voice explained, “You can’t ever be Miss America cause you’re not white!” It was years later and once again our family was watching the musical group, Gladys Knight and the Pips, only this time on a color TV. My Daddy proclaimed, “Gladys Knight would be beautiful if it wasn’t for her coffee cooler lips.” One of the distinctive features of African Americans is our full lips. Why would the adult members of my family denigrate full lips except that they were comparing us to thin lipped beauty standards? I quietly asked, “What are coffee cooler lips?” My Dad answered by sticking out his lips and pretending to blow hot coffee. “Her lips are way too big” Daddy said and I went into the bathroom and looked into the mirror at eight years old to see what size were my lips. I never thought I was unbeautiful or wondered about the size of features until confronted by white standards of beauty that had also been adopted by African American people. Family gives you your first sense of self. Yet on the other hand, we didn’t struggle with color bias in our particular family. Our extended family had members, who were colored bronze, beige, ivory, white, golden flame, mango ripen, dusky dark and deep blue-black. No one was castigated because of the color of their skin, but that had to do with my mother and my maternal relatives who were determined, because of growing up in the racist, color-struck South, not to pass color bias down to their children. They did not reject all white standards of beauty but they did outright reject some. I believe that there are similar struggles in other families who lived on reservations, or who have almond shaped eyes or who have more color in their skins. Resist, resist, resist. That was my decision growing up. Resist anyone and anything that denies you on the basis of color and gender. It was a conscious decision to never enter a beauty competition, yet I never believed myself to be ugly. When I grew up and wore lipstick, I rimmed my lips with color making them appear as large as possible. I wore an Afro as a young teenager and I still am in love with my natural hair. I would be fooling myself if I didn’t acknowledge that growing up, the majority culture didn’t see much beauty in any of us with colorful skins and that the deeper and richer the color, the less beautiful you were made to feel. People in public places would go out of their way to frown at gorgeous colors and derogatory names, along with actions were aimed your way if you dared to act like you felt truly lovely. White Americans in the past few decades were very vocal about their standards of beauty and had a long, hurtful and exhaustive list of why nothing but blonde, blue-eyes and palest white skins were at the top of the list, anyone else white followed and then at the bottom of the list was the color black. It is important for everyone in this country to check where their standards of beauty originate and how their standards impact other ethnicities in America. Like the Asian student who recently told me in a poetry class “black is evil.” My immediate response was “black is not evil and that is another reason why I am a poet. I bend and shape words and accept nothing that is offensive to me. ” He is a middle school student and I am an adult African American poet teaching him. In both of our cultures there is a respect system based on age and authority. Nonetheless, there was a serious disconnect between seeing the color of my skin and deciding that I represent evil. His cultural standard of beauty impinges on my healthy sense of self and more importantly, it reminds me that even now, some youngsters still believe that the color black is synonymous with evil. My poem, "These Women of Gorgeous Color" asks who will love and respect the women of gorgeous colors, but also testifies to how satisfying it is to care for and quietly admire your own beauty, both inner and outward, if no one else ever does. Welcome elementary student poets! The Capital City Hues in collaboration with Madison Poet Laureate, Fabu will feature your poems each month beginning with the May editions. The poems can be any type, on any subject but 10 lines or less. Poet Fabu will contribute a short intro to the selected poems. No pay involved but The Capital City Hues, on behalf of Fabu, will contribute a monthly amount to the John Tueschan Poet Laureate Memorial Fund. In addition, The Capital City Hues will feature the poets reading their work on the newspaper's web page. Poems can be sent by snail mail to The Capital City Hues, 612 Christianson Ave., Madison, WI 53714-1533 or the preferred way by emailing Fabu at blkpoetess68@hotmail.com. We are now accepting poems and because you are students, we have to have a permission slip signed by your teacher or your parent releasing us to publish your poem in the newspaper and stating that this is your original work. This is part of Fabu's initiative as the new poet laureate to place poems in new spaces and places. Thank you poets! |
From a Little Brown Girl
By Fabu, Madison’s Poet Laureate
Little brown ears heard up close
The Civil Rights movement
Explained inside our home.
Mr. Clemons, fired sanitation worker
Shared personal updates on the strike
Connecting 1968 Memphis to 1955 Selma.
Daddy, career Army sergeant
Ordered away from us to fight for freedom
For our country in Viet Nam.
Mommy, southern homemaker
Gone into the streets to march for freedom
For our people in Memphis.
Little brown mind turning over and over
To understand
Brave parents and a country's rejection.
Daddy left first
To a place I could only reach
With my bedtime prayer, God Bless Daddy.
Mommy said I could not march
Along side her
It was grown ups times to fight, not yet mine.
Fear was heavy in me
Lose Daddy in a far away war
Lose Mommy in a war up close.
Little brown eyes watched
On Easter morning
Soldiers in tanks rumble through our neighborhood.
They killed Dr. King our leader
Mommy's screams changed me forever.
I stood as a little brown girl and whispered
Please Jesus let Daddy and Mommy live
Dr. King is dead
you could have taken me instead.
copyrighted 1/21/08 Fabu