Reclaiming My Voice: A Black Woman’s Journey Through Poetry and Anti-Blackness
In 2019, I stood on stage at the University of Houston and performed a spoken word piece that would become a turning point in my life. That poem, America Never Loved Me, began as a personal processing of my educational journey and ended as a revelation. But truthfully, it started much earlier. I first put pen to paper in 2017, two years before anyone ever heard it.
The piece was raw. It was honest. It was mine.
America Never Loved Me
Excerpt from original poem
America never loved me Yea, that's right, America NEVER loved ME Yet expected me to bow down and love it without question...
In this poem, I unpacked what it meant to grow up Black in a system that was never built for me. From being followed around stores to being dismissed in classrooms, I found my voice in the silence I was forced into. But through the creation and performance of America Never Loved Me, I found something deeper: a framework for making sense of myself and the world around me.
The Black EPICS Framework in Action
This piece unknowingly became my first application of the Black EPICS Framework:
Expert: I was the expert of my own lived experience.
Preach: I spoke boldly, even when it was risky.
Identity: I explored and affirmed my identity as a Black student and woman.
Collective: I moved from "I" to "we," acknowledging community.
Storytelling: I reclaimed my story, my way.
Through EPICS, I was finally able to turn trauma into testimony.
The Journey Behind the Poem
I grew up quiet and reserved—what people often misunderstood as docile. I buried my emotions deep after being told I was too much. But before all that, I wrote. I wrote songs. I wrote short stories. I tried to sing (even though I couldn’t). But more than anything, I needed to express. To tell my truth. To take control of the story others tried to write for me.
That’s when I found spoken word.
In undergrad, I witnessed Black students perform their truths using found poetry, storytelling, and research. It clicked. I came home from a grad school visit and finally completed America Never Loved Me. I didn’t share it right away—because it scared me. Because it hurt. But that fear, that pain, was the beginning of my healing.
Understanding Anti-Blackness
Anti-Blackness isn’t just a theory. It’s my reality. It lives in curriculum, in classroom discipline, in standardized testing, in how people perceive my body, my tone, my existence.
As Michael Dumas explains, anti-Blackness positions Blackness as anti-human. It’s not just racism—it’s the very framework that devalues our lives. When I started learning about anti-Blackness, I found language for the pain I had always known. I realized that what I had experienced was not my fault. It was systemic. And I was not alone.
“Anti-Blackness is the blood pumping through the body of the United States.”
The classroom was the heart of that body, circulating pain dressed up as opportunity.
From Silence to Voice
Spoken word helped me unlearn internalized racism. It helped me see that I was not the problem. That my awkward, emotional, deeply feeling self was worthy. That my voice deserved space. That I didn’t have to contort myself to fit anyone’s mold of Black womanhood.
In performing pieces like Discovering a Queen, I began to deconstruct societal expectations and reconstruct a new definition of self. One rooted in joy, resistance, and truth.
Discovering a Queen
Excerpt from original poem
I KNOW WHO I AM And India Arie sang it a little wrong See, I am my hair I am this skin But I'm also the soul that lives within
With every line, I reclaimed my body, my narrative, my humanity.
Collective Healing Through Expression
There is power in performing a poem you cried through writing. Power in being heard—not just listened to, but truly seen. Those snaps, the nods, the mmm hmms—they reminded me I wasn’t alone. That my story wasn’t too much. That I didn’t need to shrink.
Spoken word became my liberation. Not because it erased my trauma, but because it gave me language to name it. Because it gave me permission to feel it. Because it built a community where I could be my full, authentic self.
“Spoken word just made me stop caring what other people think because spoken word became about me.”
EPICS as Praxis
When I write, I am the expert. When I perform, I preach. In every line, I explore identity. I speak for the collective. And I reclaim my story.
That’s the Black EPICS Framework. That’s the power of spoken word.
That’s my story. And I’m still writing it.
Author’s Note: This blog is an excerpt from a larger journey shared on The Journal of Abundance, where we explore how storytelling becomes healing, how poetry becomes praxis, and how we, as Black storytellers, become free.
If you felt this piece, if it made you pause or breathe differently—keep reading, keep writing, and keep reclaiming. Your voice matters here.
References
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WWU Diversity Teach-In. (2017). Michael Dumas on anti-Blackness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk1MmGCSEeY
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Edited with support from ChatGPT (OpenAI) to enhance clarity and flow, while staying true to the story’s voice.
All images in this post were generated using OpenAI’s DALL·E image model via ChatGPT.
