A Woman with Something to Fight for

My senior year I attended a poetry slam. I know, not the everyday activity of an eighteen year-old, but I was not an average eighteen year-old. I remember listening to this black woman (or African-American, whichever you prefer), and her words moved me to tears.

Capturing her sprouted, snake-like locks in a bun pulled high on her head, she told stories her mother told her whose grandmother told her. The story repeated on down the line about captivity, slavery and bravery. Her relatives had a cause to fight for, and their stories told of their struggles. Poetry is a piece of humanity told through imagery. The subjects colors, wills and desires all meant something different in that aspect of humanity.

As a young, white woman, who has yet to experience much of the world, I started wondering: what is my cause?

If I were standing in the street facing hoses, batons, dogs and tear gas, what would I be yelling? What would my sign say? What would I be fighting for?

I like to consider myself as a passionate person. I feel things, sometimes I think, more than other people do. Like the poet on stage, I wanted a unique story to tell, but I never considered myself unique in a land where the population is termed a "melting pot." I considered myself the pot that someone could look at and say, "Oh, yeah, that is definitely a pot." All the other ethnic backgrounds make up the stew- the meat. No one cares about what the pot has to say, everyone wants to get right to the stew, or the meat. Something to "sink their teeth into."

Having a cause to fight for, makes me unique. I am not longer a container holding the tantalizing stew. I am enriched by the stew and stand for myself. I may look like some other object in the pot, but in my own way, I am unique. A pot is always just a pot.

Now, I know. I am a woman. I have to fight for what I think it means to be a woman.

Since this is my soapbox, I thought you should know- I am woman, hear me roar.