Speech 创作者： 
Gaye Adegbalola 
N/A•1 浏览量•
调：G# minor•
Verse 1
Em
I've personally known oppression all my life,
as a black in the segregated
South, as a poor
E
person, as a woman, as a single parent,
Em
as a lesbian.
D
Em
E
By far the most severe has been
the oppression of color.
My ancestors were raped from
Africa, families separated and
Em
so, my language and culture
stolen, my name stolen.
E
My first identity is shaped by
my blackness.
Yet, many of the struggles and indignities
I've faced as a lesbian are similar to those
I've faced in my struggle for
Black civil rights.
Briefly, I will
share a few of the similarities.
D
E
I should note here that I will use the word
queer to represent the
GLBTQ community inclusively.
First, both
Black oppression and the oppression
A
Bbm
of queers is justified by the
Bible.
E
Yes, it says that slavery is okay and
that the master can keep and sell the children.
The
Bible also says that the homosexual is an abomination
and should be put to death.
Yes, it's all right there.
Yet it also says that adulterers should be put to death, that
D
E
non -virgins before marriage
should be executed, that divorce is not permitted,
that married men can have concubines, that
if you have riches,
you won't enter the kingdom of heaven.
You see, this beautiful book can selectively be used
to oppress anyone or to empower anyone.
Secondly, the struggles are identical in that
the oppression is legislated.
Think about the many
Jim
Crow laws which legalized
discrimination.
Laws kept schools segregated, prevented blacks and whites from marrying,
kept blacks from
being protected from hate crimes, and now,
current laws prevent queers from this same
protection.
Laws often prevent partner
visitation in hospitals.
They prevent us from leaving our
Social
Security or our hard -earned
pensions to our partners.
Laws even prevent nursing home rights
and military recognition.
It's not about whether your church
will accept me.
That's a question of faith.
It's about whether I have the
same civil rights as everyone else.
If I pay the
same taxes, I should have
the same civil rights.
D
E
The law denies me hundreds of
rights.
Both struggles have had
a share of martyrs,
Emmett
Till,
Medgar
Evers,
Malcolm and
Martin.
So too there's
Harvey
Milk and
Matthew
Shepard and
Brandon
and
Tina.
Both struggles require courage to speak up,
to stand up.
They require the courage
of our convictions.
As with the
Black struggle, many queers fear retribution,
D
loss of jobs,
E
loss of family, and hate crimes.
And just as
Blacks needed white allies,
queers need
straight allies.
We need allies of good conscience.
Indeed, we must foster worldwide allies,
and
we must work to end
worldwide oppression.
Let us not forget the name -calling.
Coon,
buckwheat,
Sambo, nigger.
Dyke, faggot, abomination.
We are made to feel inferior.
Eleanor
Roosevelt
D
said that no one can make you feel inferior
E
without your permission.
Em
But basically, our
E
inferi ority has been beaten into us.
Simply put, from day one,
black has been made to represent
evil and ugliness.
You know, death is black, and devil's food is black,
and angel's food, of course,
is white.
My flat nose and my nappy head
was called ugly.
And simply put, from day one,
queer physical images,
and gender identities have been stereotyped and ostracized.
Until I embraced the beauty of my blackness,
I could not throw off the cloak of inferiority.
And until I embraced the beauty of my queerness,
I could not throw off this particular cloak of inferiority.
I have no shame.
I can look my adversaries in the eye and be proud of my
own self -worth and dignity.
And of course, there are many differences
in the respective struggles.
And briefly, I'll share a few examples,
just a few.
First, the biggest difference is you don't have to tell your
mama that you're black.
Automatically, with the black struggle, your mother
and your family had a full understanding
of what you were going through.
For the most part, in the
Black community,
you couldn't pass.
But many queers can easily pass.
If all of us had the courage
to step forward,
families would change,
legislation would change,
society would change.
Most
Blacks do not have to live
the biggest lie.
You see, many queers are called sinners,
but is it not a sin to lie?
To me, the biggest sin of all would be to
live one's entire life as a lie.
Another major difference in the struggle is how sex
is placed in the forefront of the
queer struggle for civil rights.
The word homosexual is said in such a way that
it's all about sex.
Many folks talk about one's orientation
as though it is something one can change.
E
Just as I cannot change my blackness,
E
I cannot change my orientation.
E
If I could, would I ever choose
to live a life so very difficult?
I could go on, but I'll conclude with one final
but big difference.
The black civil rights struggle
was fueled by protest songs.
The queer struggle doesn't
have any real protest songs.
Well, not that I know of.
So I wrote one.
This song precipitated this entire
CD.
Whether we are closeted by our sexuality,
or perhaps by abuse,
or mental illness, or poverty,
whatever might make us
fearful and shameful,
it is my hope that this song will be a
song of freedom for all people.
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常见问题
The original key of Speech by Gaye Adegbalola is G# minor.
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