A Letter To Langston Hughes

By Laura Ivers

Oppression is oppression is oppression.

It don’t matter whether you be black or white.

My daddy used ‘ta beat me like a slave.

And when he put me to bed at night,

it was my womanhood that I had to save.

Unlike you I came into the world

white and free. . .

But my daddy said to me,

“It’s my God given right

to treat you as I please.”

Maybe.

Maybe.

Maybe.

But I am a child no longer

and like you,

Brother Hughes,

I cry freedom.

Your daddy is the one that you call

White Society

And my daddy is someone whom I call

Father.

Seems to me, though, it makes no difference

‘cause your daddy sounds just like my daddy.

And your dreams, they Sing just like my dreams.

Oppression is oppression is oppression,

Brother Hughes.

It don’t matter whether you be

black or white.

*   *   *   *   *

I  used my poetry to handle memories that were surfacing from my childhood.  At this time I started reading the poetry of Langston Hughes . . . and then everything just sort of fell into place. The abuse which took place in my family seemed to mirror our racist society at large and so I began to play with these themes within my writing.  I wanted to unveil the hidden structures that runs throughout the three sisters of oppression:  Racism,  Sexism, and Classism.

I sought to unveil not out of a sense of revenge, but rather as a call to action . . . to heal over this dreadful past.  While I was doing my healing work, racism got hooked up in my mind as the perpetrator.  It felt like it was literally raping my soul.  And then there was the coming to terms with my own Whiteness . . . for what my culture had done.  Writing these poems was the only way that I knew how to ask for forgiveness; and it was the only way that I knew how to effectively express my sense of outrage.

Poetry became my balm of salvation, my experience of Amazing Grace.