2 Long Poems
The Pain of a Black Woman
For centuries the black woman has been
demoralized then defamed.
As well as watching her dignity being put to shame.
She observed over the years her children being
scold and sold.
Then witnessed the killing of her daughters and
sons as they were hung.
She underwent much agony that burdened her soul.
Yet she displayed strength of gold that keeps her
mentally whole.
Even through years of being discredited, she has been
highly disgraced from others of the female race.
She took on a lot of burden throughout the years with
resentment of painful tears.
As she was forced to give birth in the cotton field,
then serve
her master in his home while she left her
children home alone.
Her love for Christ kept her intact, yet her soul
wanted
to react because she was force to raise the slave
owner’s child…pain of dislike continue to increase.
In spite of all that abuse, her self determination
and darkness of inner grief converted into light
of a virtuous woman’s internal peace.
Still the black woman’s spirit runs free and her bravery
cannot be measured; which leaves her strength of
beauty a mystery.
Many ethnic groups try to explain the endurance of the
black woman’s pain.
She hides it with self-pride but deep in her heart
the hurt of injustice continues to silently reside.
She is a true treasure of life struggle that cannot be
denied.
Spiritual encouragement she possesses inside.
By Naomi Johnson
Naomi Johnson’s poem “The Pain of a Black Woman” details the plight of African American women. They encounter pain and intense emotional burden as they are “demoralized” and “defamed” by the society around them. However, despite these crimes committed against them, they are not allowed to express their grief and sadness in ways that other White women do. Instead, they must put on a strong facade despite intense inner turmoil.
To begin, I drew many comparisons between the racialized society in The United States to The Color of Love by Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman. Although there are many differences, both Brazilian and American societies have racial hierarchies that confer an advantage to white skin and a disadvantage to black. This is one of the main themes of the poem as this hostile and unforgiving environment creates feelings of pain and sadness in Black women. Like in Brazil, African American women understand their historical place beneath Whiteness and weigh the costs and benefits of their emotional displays. Like wheelchair users (Cahill), they understand that showing their true anger at a situation as a marginalized person will only isolate them from the majority and status quo. Therefore, the poem highlights the emotional burden and excess emotional management that Black women must undertake to survive in society. Black women are taught feeling rules of being subservient to their White slave masters as these emotions are deemed appropriate given their position on the hierarchy. These feeling rules (Hochschild) are taught and socialized in the Black community – they watch their daughters and songs being hung and killed yet know they cannot rise or react in anger. Black women, like Afro-Brazilians, must rely on racial fluency and literacy to navigate their world and understand their place in it. As such, they may rely on tacit understanding to understand the racial boundaries between White and Black. These understandings of racial fluency and literacy allow Black women to avoid transgressing in places of Whiteness. Instead of showing their true emotions, Black women surface act putting on an appearance displaying a “strength of gold.” However, elements of deep acting are brought to light as they can change their internal feelings by convincing themselves that they are strong. Consequently, they feel as though they are “mentally whole.”
Lastly, the poem is littered with religious conceit to highlight the inability of Black women in the past and today’s society to display their grief or upset. Instead, they must turn to religion. Religion is used as a coping mechanism for Black women when they cannot display their true, internal feelings. Like wheelchair users, it may harm them to show feelings of frustration and anger because they may contribute to the poor ways in which the dominant in society views any further interactions with people with similar disabilities or skin colors. As Hordge-Freeman says, “they all frame their ability to overcome by highlighting their religious backgrounds” because “religion is fundamental to helping them cope with these emotional difficulties.”
Mad About Cows
By: Jacob Saenz
I’ve eaten part of a cow’s heart
to become a part of the past,
of tío & his talk of grandpa’s
love of tacos of the heart,
the eyes & brain, the parts
of a cow that make one mad.
I’ve held a heart hacked to chunks
& cooked on the grill in the backyard,
a warm corn tortilla cradling parts
of artery too hard to chew through
w/ teeth not trained for the toughness
of the meat, the organ that once beat
in the body of a beast who feasted on grass.
I’ve tried to taste a piece of the past,
of abuelo’s craving for tacos de corazon,
ojos y cerebro pero two bites was enough
to feel what I felt it must’ve been like for him,
the flavor & fullness, the forever chewing.
In “Mad About Cows,” Jacob Saenz tells the story of his disjointed and hyphenated identity. Although his family is Latino, he finds himself straying from his cultural roots and feeling disconnected from them. Consequently, he feels as though he must chase after the masculinity stemming from his Latino heritage by eating a metaphorical cow to relate to the men of his family. However, he quickly realizes that this cow, although important to him, will never fill the void in his heart that is caught between the two countries. The poem also feels like a commentary on toxic masculinity and how he is caught up in it. Instead of displaying his emotions healthily, he feels as though he is silenced by his positionality in society as a Latino man.
This poem takes a deep dive into feeling rules that people are expected to follow because of their race or gender. In this case, the author of the poem feels as though his emotions are constricted and he must present a stoic display of machismo. He is caught between two cultures – one where he thinks he can express himself more freely (American) and the other (Latin) where he must live up to the men of his family and portray a rough exterior. This is an example of how feeling rules are different across cultures because different emotional expressions can be expected and normative in one culture and not the other. This is because feeling rules are created and normalized depending on a given situation or context, in this case, it would be culture. For instance, in the US it is a widely accepted practice in many communities to be open about one’s feelings and mental health by seeking therapy. However, many cultures may think that these vulnerable emotional displays are simply marked as “White only.” Therefore, there is a disparity in feeling rules because being able to assert one’s inner feelings and individualism are not awarded to certain minorities in the US and are almost a privilege. Just as “women litigators are penalized for displaying emotions such as anger and aggression” (Wingfield), Latino men may be type-cast as weak or feminine for disrupting the status quo. These different feeling rules butt heads in the author’s mind, thereby causing him to experience inner turmoil and making him think that he must stay silent and force-feed himself the meat of his culture. However, he realizes that this is inauthentic which is why he is “forever chewing,” unable to digest this faux interpretation of his own culture.
In my own experience, I feel as though POC have to perform excess emotional management to not come across certain ways to White people and maintain decorum. We feel as though we must contain our feelings of anger and frustration to not scare them and contribute to our negative stereotypes. For instance, many Black women feel as though they are not awarded the same amount of self-expression as White women. When White women are upset and express this in an emotional display, they are pitied and seen as vulnerable. When Black or POC women act emotionally, they are typecast as the “angry Black woman,” or seen as dangerous or even threatening. This knowledge is a form of racial socialization that POC pick up from living in American society. We recognize the boundaries and the emotions that are off-limits to us of our skin color. By studying our environments in ways that White people do not even have to think about, we become racially fluent and literate to understand the rules of our society and our place within it.