RP1: Angry Brown Girl

I am just SO angry. I am angry that every time I speak on this campus what sounds to me like English comes out like a foreign language to just about everyone who does not see the problem. Sometimes I ask my friends, “I am speaking English right? So why don’t people understand where I am coming from?” Me duele. It hurts to know that I can be an English major, one good with words, yet no one ever understands them.  It is a pain that I would never wish to my worst enemy because it means that no matter how educated you become and how hard you work, you still will be undermined. It is not fair to me, my peers, my family, and my parents who have busted their ass to get me here only to come to find that the agency my voice is supposed to gain through education is being stripped of credibility solely because of the color of my skin. This is a new phenomenon to me; the more you get educated, the more you will never be believed or heard. For this I am ANGRY.

I was not always the Angry Brown Girl. Adolescence was an odd time for me, but the anger I felt was not anywhere near this magnitude. Pissed off at my Ma for not letting me go to a friend’s house does not equate to my peers not hearing how Institutional racism affects each and every one of us in a painful and real way. I was blind to it. I chose to be blind to it. It was so much easier to let the pain subside into the pit of my stomach in an attempt to keep it down and digestible. I feel it and I regurgitate it every day because it did not settle well. For this I am ANGRY.

The campus of Kalamazoo College ignited my anger. Why does my single brown body in the all-white classroom make me the expert on all things race related? Why do I not have a safe space on campus? Why do I feel more at danger here on the campus of Kalamazoo College than at home on the south side of Chicago? Because this place is not meant for me. I am not the educator. It is not my responsibility to wake up every morning and apologize to every person I offend because I told them the institution is broken and is indeed not their perfect paradise. It is the ugly truth that your parents told you to turn away from y por eso many fail to see. So I ask that you listen. Just open your ears to what I have to say. Yes I am angry, but I am angry for a multitude of reasons that you should listen and think about, but the first step is to listen. Challenge and question why so many fail to listen to how the institution has failed us ALL. I cannot keep relaying the message. For this I am EXHAUSTED.