The importance of Naming...

I often write/perform spoken word/poetry in order to let off some steam. I find that it is one of my more effective tools through which to express my anger and frustration. The poem I am including in this post came after a conversation in an undregrad class I TAed. As we discussed the founding fathers, particularly Jefferson, no one was willing, or able, to name the slave he had children with. This made me furious! When so few people of color, so few slaves, have been humanized and given a name we cannot continue to forget or overlook the few who have been.

For All the Black Women (and men) who have remained Nameless in our history books, our mythologies, and lives, it is time. Time to use their names. 

Have you considered what compromise means in American history

An accommodation in which both sides make concessions

And still, people remain possessions

The Declaration of Independence

Where only land owning White men were in attendance

Was signed to free a people from unjust rule

Now seriously, who's the fool?

You want to uphold what these men stood for

And completely ignore how they lived their lives

The Declaration, A compromise

Put in place, managing to dehumanize

As I sit in this room and witness your violence

Are you really going to be silent?

Is slave all you can say?

Can we say her name??

Sally Hemings

The Black woman, owned by Jefferson

I don’t care what stories have been spun

To protect the author of Independence

Because I will call out his ascendance

Does it, as a white person, make your skin crawl

To name the Black woman

The founding father raped at 14

Say her name

Sally Hemings

In a history where so many

Were left nameless

Faceless

Animals in cages

I demand that you say her NAME!

How can we talk of his actions with such favor

And I don’t even think you’re going to waiver

Maybe if you call out his bullshit

You’ll feel the guilt, just a little bit

Her Name was Sally Hemings

She was the half sister of Martha, his wife

Think about it, how’d she come to life?

RAPE

Yes, it was not a scene of wine and grapes

When her own father gave her, To his real daughter 

This earth doesn’t contain enough holy water

To absolve this nation

From the sins of it’s creation

But you will say her Name

And not continue with the inhumane

Because faceless, and nameless

Are less likely to depress

And give you no room to assess

Or question the oppression

Our country has woven so deep

Sustained and kept so cheap

Because without a face, a name

You have no claim

To the freedom and rights

Of the men who were rich, protestant, land owning Whites

But you will say her name

Sally Hemings