the perspective of black women re: their position and struggles in society is at least entertained/"up for debate"--meaning, we get the opportunity to make our case/scrap to have our voices heard and get at least a couple head nods amongst the derision--and *that* is some kind of giant moral upperhand that we must feel grateful for having? there is nowhere near a consensus on the validity of the perspective of black women. for every person who understands, there are 100 who think we are being too sensitive/making things up/looking for some sort of charity. if it is happening here in this thread, in a crowd of people that you concede is more open to the conversation than a lot of folk would be, what does that say about the general reception black women must get when they dare to open their mouths about their own experiences? and if we aren't even deemed reliable witnesses re: our own experiences, our thoughts certainly aren't given much weight in regard to the wide world of experience and how we think things should be. I don't know what kind of 'gold' you can call that. fool's gold, maybe.

(and birds sing sweeter
than books
tell how)