“You cannot carry out fundamental change without a certain amount of madness. In this case, it comes from nonconformity, the courage to turn your back on the old formulas, the courage to invent the future. It took the madmen of yesterday for us to be able to act with extreme clarity today. I want to be one of those madmen. We must dare to invent the future.” ~ Thomas Sankara, 1985

Someone called her a Woman.

She heard someone call her a woman, and then with the phrase, the voice added “that black woman,” pointing at her with his finger.

“That black woman over there,” like all he could see was the colour. as if the ‘I’ in her did not matter.
She does matter, and she knows that turning to look at the direction of the voice, the falseness that labeled her as “that black woman”.
It was a man, a young male.
Well I don’t blame him,” She said under her breath.
“He has been made to feel superior and mighty, perhaps because of the gift; that gift- you know the one that is accorded to us all, but he has recognized his, by some diversion of what he thinks is good.”
She paused, and then spoke, “what prompts thee to call me ‘that’, that black woman?”
“I mean no trouble, no disrespect, Miss.”
“Miss,” she reiterated his word with frown on her brow.
“Now, what makes you call me Miss?
“Look you here,” she continued. “I am a Lady. “You hear me! You talk to me with respect. If you must refer to me with a word, then, perhaps make it proper, like, the lady over there.”
“But if I may say, why not ask me my name, the name given to me; not that black woman or Miss.” She employed him, as she stood straight up.
He looked at her with dismay in his eyes, surprised that she questioned him, but nonetheless, he sensed the boldness in her. He smiled faintly, and then responded.
“What should I call you?” He spoke as if it was a surprise that she should challenge him for calling her what she did not ascribed to.
“My name of course? She said.
“Your name,” he responded.
“Yes, my name,”
“And your name is?” he asked her, as if mocking her to tell him a name.
“I am Good! She responded.
“That is the name accorded to me”
“Good.” He looked at her surprised.
“You know,” she said, “slightly turning her head, as if to engage him in a conversation. “In the beginning, God created man.”
“Now who said that I am not that man and Adam? She asked leaning towards him.
“I feel just as powerful and superior if I may use that word, “superior” for I see no man more superior than any man. We may well all be Adam, I suppose.”
“Who then is Eve, the woman,” the man asked?
“Oh well, Eve is Eve, the tempter and progenitor who took us all out of the Garden of Eden, and here wrought thee to think of a word ‘black and a woman, and then, miss.”
“Who then is the serpent? He asked her. She looked at him innocently.
“Perhaps there isn’t a serpent, but just man and maybe Eve, the conceived.” she replied faking a smile.
He paused briefly, and then added.
“Who are you?
She ignored his question, and went on
“And who said, you are not the Eve, the one of all the wrong thinking?”
He looked at her, dismayed; all confused and thoughtless.
The young man scratched his head and walked away.

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