This poem is my Mantra. I remember when I first read this poem. I was a sophomore in college and I was sitting in Greg's class (the god of all gods), which was our Justice seminar, and he asked if I would read it. I did--having not read it before, and I loved it. I immediately took it back to my room and called my friend Rebecca who came down and we read it together--and cried and howled over it. It has been one of the most inspiring and defining pieces that I have ever encountered.

June Jordan: Poem About My Rights
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~micmag/issue1/poemaboutmyrights.php



Even tonight and I need to take a walk and clear
my head about this poem about why I can't
go out without changing my clothes my shoes
my body posture my gender identity my age
my status as a woman alone in the evening/
alone on the streets/alone not being the point/
the point being that I can't do what I want
to do with my own body because I am the wrong
sex the wrong age the wrong skin and
suppose it was not here in the city but down on the beach/
or far into the woods and I wanted to go
there by myself thinking about God/or thinking
about children or thinking about the world/all of it
disclosed by the stars and the silence;
I could not go and I could not think and i could not
stay there
alone
as I need to be
alone because I can't do what I want to do with my
own
body
and who in the hell set things up
like this
and in France they say if a guy penetrates
but does not ejaculate the he did not rape me
and if after stabbing him and if after screams if
after begging the bastard and if even after smashing
a hammer to his head if even after that
he and his buddies fuck me after that
then I consented and there was
no rape because finally you understand finally
they fucked me over because I was wrong I was
wrong again to be me being me where I was/wrong
to be who I amwhich is exactly like South Africa
penetrating into Namibia penetrating into
Angola and does that mean I mean how do you know if
Pretoria ejaculates
what will the evidence look like the proof of the monster jackboot ejaculation on Blackland
and if after Namibia and if after angola and if after Zimbabwe
and if after all my kinsmen and women resist even to
self-immolation of the villages and if after thatwe lose nevertheless what will the big boys say will they
claim my consent:Do You Follow Me: We are the wrong people ofthe wrong skin on the wrong continent and what in the hell is everybody being so reasonable about
and according to the Times this week
back in 1966 the C.I.A. decided that they had this problem
and the problem was a man named Nkrumah so theykilled him and before that it was Patrice Lumumba
and before that it was my father on the campus
of my Ivy League school and my father afraid
to walk into the cafeteria because he said he
was wrong the wrong age the wrong skin and wrong
gender identity and he was paying my tuition andbefore that
it was my father saying I was wrong say that
I should have been a boy because he wanted one/aboy and that I should have been lighter skinned andthat I should have had straighter hair and that
I should not be so boy crazy but instead I should
just be one/a boy and before that
it was my mother pleading plastic surgery for
my nose and braces for my teeth and telling me
to let the books loose to let them loose in otherwords
I am very familiar with the problems of the C.I.A.
and the problems of South Africa and the problems
of Exxon Corporation and the problems of white
America in general and the problems of the teachers
and the preachers and the F.B.I. and the socialworkers and my particular Mom and Dad/I am very familiar with the problems because the problems
turn out to be
meI am the history of rape
I am the history of the rejection of
who I am
I am the history of the terrorized incarceration of
my self
I am the history of battery assault and limitless
armies against whatever I want to do with my mind
and my body and my soul and whether it's about walking out at night
or whether it's about the love I feel or
whether it's about the sanctity of my vagina or
the sanctity of my national boundariesor the sanctity of my leaders or the sanctity
of each and every desire
that I know from my personal and idiosyncratic
and indisputably single and singular heartI have been raped
be-cause I have been wrong the wrong sex the wrong age the wrong skin the wrong nose the wrong hair the wrong need the wrong dream
the wrong geographic
the wrong satorial
I have been the meaning of rape
I have been the problem everyone seeks to
eliminate by forced penetration with or without the evidence of slime and/but let this be unmistakable this poem
is not consent I do not consent to my mother to my father to the teachers to
the F.B.I to South africa to Bedford-Stuy
to Park Avenue to American Airlines to the hardon idlers on the corners to the sneaky creeps in
cars
I am not wrong: Wrong is not my name
My name is my own my own my own
and I can't tell you who in the hell set things up like this
but I can tell you that from now on my resistence
my simple and daily and nightly self-determination
may very well cost you your life