Less Than or Equal Value

I am oppressed.

A seventeen-year old, Hispanic and Latina young woman

Who can’t possibly know what she wants.

The world is against me.

I am angry.

Be it that the world thinks I have a heavy accent the moment

They see or hear my name.

Wow! Do I really speak that good?

Can I say some explicit words for you in this foreign language?

I am silenced.

Be it that this man-run world tunes me out – mutes my voice

Because I have different body parts.

Forcing a mind made for submissive work.

My friends – Why don’t they care?

Why don’t they see the problems I face; what we face as a gender?

They don’t listen.

They’d rather pay attention to their phones all day,

Complaining about their latest fascination with what’s wrong with our day and age;

But don’t care about what I have to say

About my rights as a woman;

About my rights as a native-born, U.S. citizen.

I’m not just oppressed by the man-ruled government, but also by the media.

Thank you, for telling me I have beautiful complexion (but where am I from, again?).

Thank you for mocking and undermining the thick eyebrows of my people,

But replicate them months after they’re labeled as the latest fashion sense.

And thank you for making your lips look “plump”,

When before my lips were too big.

I’m oppressed by the fools who take me as an object

Of their five-minutes of self-manipulation –

To make themselves seem like a better person.

Taking to their accounts of social media – supporting me for five minutes

Before they realize they have other and better things to talk about.

Can you believe that the world sees me as a statistic?

They can tell me all about how I’m much more prone for heart disease,

But they won’t stand for what I have to say about their behavior towards me as a person

Back during the laws of segregation- where not only Blacks were pushed off to the side

But my heavy accent and personality were pushed just the same.

Did you know that being a Hispanic and Latina woman means lesser pay in this world of “progression”?

Right.

Can’t you see that I am one and the same; and equal human being as what was always intended?

Not a slave to your society; not an assumption to pick for the housework you need done.

I am a loud believer of better times, but the pressures of the world crush the ego of my ancestors.

When am I valued the same as my oppressors?

Be it the man-ruled world or

The people who had seen my race and gender as a disgrace to humanity,

But now look at me as an object of their current fascination.

When do I catch a break of this filthy-minded society?

When do I get to appreciate my own values rather than what I “am”?