I am not ashamed

by Jamilah Hoffman

The following is a poem written and performed by Jamilah Hoffman at the Creative Women Unite International Women's Day cultural event in Houston, March 8, 2010.

This poem is dedicated to Sakia Gunn, who at 15 was going home with a group of girlfriends when a couple of guys started to harass them. She told the guys to leave them alone, that they were lesbians and not interested. They got into a fight and Sakia was stabbed and killed. This poem is for her.

I Am Not Ashamed
My body is a battleground
A constant fight occurs between
What is true
And this system.
I wear self-inflicted scars
Like medals of honor
For I have survived the battle of mis-placed anger.
But it remains to be seen,
Who will win the war?

I linger in the mirror
Not in a shameless space of vanity
But rather out of defiance.
The audacity of believing I belong.
But I have to be careful,
You see,
Defiant women often make people uncomfortable,
Afraid, even.
When all I want to do is walk down the street with my head held high.
This has become a political statement:
I am not ashamed.

I am not ashamed to believe the world can be much better than what it is now
I am not ashamed to be a revolutionary
Color me a communist, I am not ashamed
I am not ashamed to live outside the boundaries of the now
And I’m not ashamed
To want to live in a world
Where little girls have the chance to grow up to be women.

Send us your comments.

This is the official website for Revolution newspaper, voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. We extend our endorsement to the site, bobavakian.net, for authentic audio recordings (and related promotional materials) of talks by the Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, Bob Avakian.

There are many websites that link to revcom.us, and this site sometimes links to other sites. Such links do not imply endorsement by Revolution newspaper of the content of those other websites (nor are those other websites responsible for the content of revcom.us).

Three Main Points

What do we in the Revolutionary Communist Party want people to learn from all that is exposed and revealed in this newspaper?

Read On…

Free email subscription:

"What we see in contention here with Jihad on the one hand and McWorld/McCrusade on the other hand, are historically outmoded strata among colonized and oppressed humanity up against historically outmoded ruling strata of the imperialist system. These two reactionary poles reinforce each other, even while opposing each other. If you side with either of these 'outmodeds,' you end up strengthening both."

Bob Avakian, Chairman of the RCP,USA From the talk, “Why We’re in the Situation We’re in Today… And What to Do About It: A Thoroughly Rotten System and the Need for Revolution”

"In a world marked by profound class divisions and social inequality, to talk about “democracy”— without talking about the class nature of that democracy and which class it serves—is meaningless, and worse. So long as society is divided into classes, there can be no 'democracy for all': one class or another will rule, and it will uphold and promote that kind of democracy which serves its interests and goals. The question is: which class will rule and whether its rule, and its system of democracy, will serve the continuation, or the eventual abolition, of class divisions and the corresponding relations of exploitation, oppression and inequality."

Bob Avakian

Order now