Over the past year, despite the fact that I've been trying to fight my own internalized White Supremacist training for decades, the Universe has employed a whole stream of fearless and forthright Black women to try to get across to me my place in the anti-White Supremacist struggle. It has not been easy on any of us.
As a person born with a vagina, my trajectory beginning at birth has been strewn with the detritus of a life of much suffering. And I'm not talking about hurt feelings or lost loves. I'm talking about torture and rape, brutality and betrayal, the murder of my first born and attempts more than once to kill me, too. So I think fast. I'm tough. And I'm not given to flinching. It's few, indeed, who will take me on.
In many cases, this has been a good thing. At 72, I've had the opportunity and done the work to have faced down my familial demons. I'm not intimidated by wardens or cops. I don't roll over for "colleagues" with penises. I know what I value and what I don't. I'm not interested in power. And I'm not trying to be anybody's new best friend. Overall, I guess you could say, I like who I am and what I'm doing. But this doesn't mean I have nothing left to learn. In fact, the lessons I'm learning now are more difficult.