Wounds
A few days ago I was asked if I have ever felt excluded here by the color of my skin. I told them not immediately. I don't know where I responded.
After the days passed, the reflection came to mind. Who am I in time? Who am I when I look out of time? Am I a black woman? Am I an indigenous woman? Am I a white woman? Am I a mestizo woman? I wonder who I am, and sometimes I don't know. Is this important to know? What for?
When I was young, I asked my father in front of the mirror, "Why am I not white? You are a white man, and so are the sisters.”– I wanted to be like my sisters, what's more, I wanted to be the Barbie doll brought to me by my uncle who lives in America.
"How do you face the white gaze? How do we deal with our prejudices as black and “racialized” women? How do we deal with it?"
My father had two friends: one called me “Vivis India” because Viviana is my second name and the other “Chorrite and Jumo”. This second meant smoke.
I didn't want to be black, I didn't want to be indigenous. Why not, Laura? Colonialism taught us very well the hegemonic power of the white man. In Durango, there were days of colonial feminism. When I saw these black women, I have to acknowledge that, as Audre Lord said, “our sisters,” I felt a great shame. I felt that everything was absurd.
Who has suffered the most? How long will we have to live as victims in the world? Why do we want to put our truth to others? I felt this aggression that is attributed to the male world, confused with immaturity. I felt infantilized, I felt no dignity, I didn't feel represented. As Gloria Azaldua wrote, “caught in the fire between sides, when she brings the five races to your back without knowing where to go.”
In my heart was saddened. Centuries have passed, but this wound spreads and stays corrupt.
It's been hard for me to see this wound face to face, I didn't feel, I concealed guilt and shame so I didn't feel. I've heard, hugged and cared for this wound, and now I don't know where it is. Is it gone? I'm not sorry, but I know there are sisters there. It is legitimate, and perhaps necessary.
How do we face the white gaze? How do we deal with our prejudices as black and “racialized” women? How do we deal with it? What if we stopped identifying with our skin? What if we stopped identifying ourselves with everything we were told?
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