Cheryl Gittens-Jones lives in the USA. She is a practicing Buddhist, a stay-at-home mom, poet, writer and novice photographer who has an opinion about everything. Cheryl visted Senegal, West Africa,on a research trip the 1990s. There, she came face to face with the horrible legacy of slavery at the Door of No Return on Goree Island. Her writing is centered on the plight of the 'other', and thematically holds to the relationships between exile, displacement and identity. Cheryl's articles can also be viewed online at: See poems and articles at race-talk.org. See her full bio here: oneactplays.com.
I wrote this poem because I had grown tired of people not seeing me beyond the color of my skin or my “otherness.” I see it being played out on a larger scale as in African-American’s women’s right to choose as exemplified in this article that talks about Anti-Abortion Billboards.
Egypt is celebrating new freedom and pending Democracy. We in America, on the other hand, must deal with Republican obstructionism against our own freedom of choice.
A woman like Oprah would not be where she is without great strength of character and mind. She also likes to deal with reality and not revel in delusion or illusion
In Tuscon, nothing could dampen the soaring spirits of a country in need of a big, rhetorical hug from President Barack Obama.
