To those who criticized Maya Angelou

Presentation at the Tilt Festival 2019 “The Mother, The Woman” at the “She Speaks” poetry stage

Fa mi syi den sani so mi ede boro mi Nana ba

Den sa yere, den sa yere uma

Baya den sa yere den uma,

nomo den sa yere den uma

Den sa yere, den sa yere uma

When I see all the problems in the world I bow my head to the great Mother Spirit. If only, if only they would listen to the women.

I had prepared this story for you today exploring womanhood and motherhood. But then something happened. I was going to start with telling you that I don’t use the F word. I don’t call myself a feminist because I am the great granddaughter of a woman who walked with a machete on her hip and didn’t take no shit. She was a midwife and was fierce. We call that a dya dya uma. But something happened.

I had planned to tell you about my mother who with a fourth grade education finagled an application and was able to come to the Netherlands and became a nurse, another dya dya uma, but something happened.

I was going to tell you about my sons because my womanhood is intertwined with the men in my life. I would have told you about how my youngest son brings home more beauty products than I do and schools me on moisturizing and such, but something happened.

Maya Angelou happened. This past week some people found a video of her from 1990 where she berates a young girl for addressing her by her first name and posted it on line. She states how she has worked hard to get where she is. She says I am your mother, your auntie, your teacher, your professor. You will not address me as Maya, you need to address me as Ms. Angelou.

Then the bomb dropped and two camps ensued, those who were all about respect and those who felt Maya Angelou was unnecessarily harsh. And my initial thought was, those who criticize do not have a black momma, auntie or grandmother. And I read a little bit of the responses and my stomach started to burn. So that is what I have to talk to you about tonight.

You see, first of all, later on in the same program she apologized to the girl about the harshness of her tone, and she explained how what she said had hit her the wrong way. Whomever felt the need to dig up this 29 year old video did not bother showing that part. And so it starts with how black women are treated in the media.

Look at the Seada Nourhussen, Gloria Wekker, and Sylvana Simons’. There is an extra level of disrespect for how black women are treated in the media. But besides this aspect there is something far deeper at play here than either the respect vs harshness critique.

I am not a poet but if I were to write a poem I would entitle it "To those who criticized Maya Angelou".

And I would start with whomever criticized Maya Angelou does not have or understand a black momma. You see, I am a momma and I am a black momma.

We are accused of being harsh and yes sometimes we are.

Because you see we are appealing to the brilliance in you. It is not even about us, but it is about wanting to teach you about living up to the brilliance in you. And we want you to acknowledge the brilliance in us, not for our sake, but because we are trying to be the mirror for you so that when you grow up you will walk with your head held high and understand that you are brilliant.

Because our children walk in a world where that brilliance is denied and actively being squashed every single day.

And the margin of error is very small for our children. There is very little room to make mistakes. And so sometimes we are harsh because we want to keep you safe and alive. When I first came here my friend said you can see that your boys are American. Whenever they see police their total demeanor changes and they become very proper. My first reaction was “Yes!”, because they have learned to survive. My second response was “Damn!”, what have my sons learned in this world. By now they are used to be being profiled and stopped by police, just like so many other brown boys.

And so we can be harsh and push you as we have to hold you up in a world that denies you and only sees the least of you. I have been told in the school system on at least three occasions that with a few extra years my child will get there. Why is it okay that my child should take a few extra years? And it is not just mine. We know that in this country standard many of our children get lower advise than their white Dutch counterparts. We have the numbers to show it and yet it continues. And it does something to you when you are in school and you know that people look at you with fewer expectations.

And I fight everyday in this school system so that all my children get a chance to be validated. I fight so they get to develop their brilliance and shine their light, in spite of. I fight for my children who every day get the message that they don’t fit. And as a black momma I cry every day for my children, and not just the ones I gave birth to, but all my children. Those who are told “You are doing ok for a Moroccan”, or “Yea that is fine for a Turkish person”, or “Oh well, even though you are a girl…” and so on. And I cry for my neo-Nazi, right wing children, because they are my babies too. I understand how scary it is when all this time you thought your story was it and now you find out that is not the case, that those other stories matter too. I can assure you, you will be alright. But we will not go back to those old stories.

And we get blamed for a lot of things, but we still forge on. And so as black mommas we might be harsh sometimes but that is because we are trying to hold you up and affirm you in a world that does not recognize your light. We are trying to hold up the vision that you might not yet see. We are trying to be that reflection until you can hold up your own and shine brightly. And we can be harsh because we recognize your brilliance even when you can’t yet.

To those who criticized Maya Angelou I would want to say that Yes, we are harsh with our words sometimes and hold our young people accountable but that is because we come from a place of love and we love hard, because that is what our children need.

Fa mi syi den sani so mi ede boro mi Nana ba

Den sa yere, den sa yere uma