Don’t tell me that i don’t understand these ‘poor angry young men, starved for personal power’; take a look at what the white man has done with all that personal power. Do you dare think people of other races lack ambition? Behind every angry young man, regardless of his color, is a repressed angry woman with no power at all. Oh it’s fine to dump on the white man; everyone dumps on the white man, even white men. It’s almost a fad. White lesbians can down rap their oppressors and denounce their class background, but for a brown woman to denounce her brother/ oppressor, it’s a political crime.
Clara: i am pissed at this double standard, it ain’t too far in my memory that those guys were lowriding down the passing lane of my life, following me down the streets, leaning over to shout ‘Hey esa, chake it but don’t brake it,’ a half a block later filled with slurps and whistles ‘Ay mamacita, i got something that could split a woman in half.’ Oh yeah sucker, if i had a propane torch i’d fry your huevos rancheros.
But you know i never said it too loud and i still can’t or someone would say i was racist or you must be hanging out too much with those man-haters who wanna kill little boys and dios mio how did i get involved in all this name-calling, get me to the confessional. i think i’m gonna go back to being catholic.
It’s a hell of a lot easier to call someone racist than for a chicana to call her ‘brother’ a sexist jerk. Bureaucratic bullshit, but it works; it keeps us all safe and out of the way in a double deadbolt closet.
i agree, me and my ‘brother’ both been screwed by the system, but when he starts screwin’ me he is the system and when white liberals start telling me to ‘take it but don’t shake it’ they’re the system too.
From “Coming Out Queer and Brown” by Naomi Littlebear Morena in For Lesbians Only: A Separatist Anthology edited by Sarah Lucia Hoagland and Julia Penelope (1988, Onlywomen Press) pp. 345-347.
