I’m a pacifist and I’m angry.
Those two terms are not mutually exclusive.
If you are a woman of color who has something to say
You have been accused of “being an angry person”
And being called angry is meant to call you out
To point out to a deficiency in your character.
This tactic is as old as the oppression of women
Especially women of color in America, meant to silence,
Mellow out, subdue, and crush our spirit.
And some of us have internalized that for far too long.
That being angry is a sin, when in fact more often than not
It is when we stand by, quietly, that we become accomplices
Of death, fear, and violence.
What we do with our anger can be sin;
but what we do not at the sight of injustice
can be more fatal.
But Alas! We serve Jesus, who had no shame in his game,
he expressed his frustration,
And modeled for us what we are to do,
when fueled with holy anger, he
turned the tables of the moneychangers.
Money mongers, manipulators
And cheats…
Yea, I am angry
Not because I like to
Want to
Or need to
It is because
If I don’t
Im
Numb
And dumb
Or worst yet
I must have
lost my heart.
Yes, I am angry
I am mad at myself
That I let you see me
And the quiver
Of my upper lip
And the tremble of my knees
Shook the earth between us
And I hate
You saw that insolent tear
atrevida
Make its way
Near my lips
While I am Still
attempting to explain
Man-splain
In English plain
Why it is that we cry
Outloud
when we do
what is not right
it is not right
for far too long
we’ve kept it to ourselves.
Yes, I am angry
And no,
I do not let my hair down
I let my hair UP
Not as some crest
To intimidate ya’ll
The springs that jump of my head
Are not stinging coils
Meant to scare you away
They are not my defense mechanism.
But they are who I am.
Who I am
That is what seems
To really scare you.
We are angry, yes!
Because what we see
We know
It’s killing us.
And you want to call us out
Sitting us at the dugouts
As if something foul
Had been rotting
in our mouths
and our words spill out
from our souls
like self-inflicted curses
that dig deeper
the ditches
where we are supposed
to bury our dreams.
We know you see it.
Yes, we are angry
And we wonder why
Is taking you so long
To be angry too.
©Teresita Matos-Post, July 2017
Summer Music Institute
#BlackLivesMatter
Drew Theological School
