Suheir Hammad

Suheir Hammad's poems are raw to the core, there is no sugarcoating anything. The words are strong, because it reflects her feelings and thoughts, as if she's slapping all the rage onto paper. While reading "Born Palestinian, born black" there were many passages I found uncomfortable to read out loud in front of people. But we feel that way because these excerpts are things that people do not often talk of, things that are suppose to be too controversial or shouldn't be brought up. Poems such as exotic, 99 cent lipstick, and others reveals her rage towards men objectifying her, and how she feels like a walking menu. These are experiences that woman of color do face, and Hammad is voicing her rage towards being treated as a prize rather than a human. The strong use of language in a sense is extremely liberating, you can feel her anger, but also freedom in a way that she is breaking free from being gawk at by men who sees her as just an exotic woman with color.

In the preface, she states that she writes because "women are still abused as naturally as breath. People are still without land. Slavery exist, hunger persists, and mothers cry". Hammad writes because she has to, she has to write to give the voiceless a voice so that they can be heard. Her writing tackles many problems that exist in society, and the struggles that she faces as a Palestinian woman. As she says, "Language is power", her poems are a form of weapon, they serve countless of purpose, raising awareness, and tackling one problem sentence by sentence.

Hammad chose the title "Born Palestinian, born black" because she is creating correlation between the treatment of Palestinians by Israel, and the treatment that African Americans in America receives.  Black people in America are discriminated against, and she is using it as a metaphor; Palestinians go through discriminations and poor treatment. In the preface, Hammad writes a list of interoperation of what black means. The word black holds many meaning, and often time, people say it in a negative undertone. She warns readers to recognize the energy behind words, black means other things, it is not to be used in a degrading manner. She voice that labels should not be chosen for you. She decides her own definition of what it means to be her, and suggests readers to do the same.