Discrimination In Pat Parker's My Lover Is A Woman

Pat Parker’s poem “My Lover is a Woman” is about the narrator talking about the struggles she faces as both a lesbian and as a black woman. She talks about how when she’s with her lover, a white woman she is able to forget the discrimination that she faces not only from white straight people, but also from the black and queer communities, and even her own family. Near the end of the poem the narrator says that when she does think about the hatred of others, she has moments of doubt, of hatred, but then looks at her lover’s face and overcomes it all, no matter what other people have to say: “i remember every word taught me every word said to me every deed done to me & then i hate i look at my lover
& for an instant …show more content…
This poem made me cry, because even though I’ve never experience discrimination based on the color of my skin, the rest of it rings so true. Even in 2016, it’s difficult not to have doubts about yourself as a young gay woman, especially for young queer women of color, or those who come from a minority background.
The topic of “My Lover is a Woman” is the struggle with race and sexuality, and how they intersect. She is scared and angry about so many different things; about the things her family says about queer people and discussing how much they hate white people, about the things white people have done to people of her race, how even her fellow queer people look down on her. It’s not just because she’s black or because she’s gay, it’s about both of these things and how they meet; how by being both black and gay the discrimination of both compounds on top of each other.
The theme of the poem is that when everything you are feels wrong and it feels hard to even exist, it’s okay to have doubts and be angry, but it’s also okay to be yourself anyways. This is important because it can be really hard for Sapphic women, especially Sapphic women of color to be comfortable accepting who they are, so it’s important for them to know that whatever they’re feeling about it, good or bad, is totally normal and …show more content…
“My Lover is a Woman” is a free verse poem. Free verse poetry really rose in prominence during the 1960’s, which is when this poem was written. Free verse poetry was often as a means of protest against the strict poetic forms traditionally used by mainstream poets who were usually white, straight men. Free verse has often been looked down upon by those same white, straight poets, who said that it’s not real poetry unless it’s in some kind of form. The comparison can be made between the poem being in free verse and the narrator’s race and sexuality. Just as the poem’s form breaks free of typical poetic norms, the narrator broke, as a black lesbian, broke the social norms of her time, and both were looked down on for breaking conventions. The narrator used the form of the poem in order to make an even bigger statement against the racism and homophobia of her time than just the actual text of the poem. Even the poem’s structure is a part of her protest and anger against the world she has been forced to live in; the world where she is made to be ashamed for who she is and who she loves. This ties back to the theme, because just as the poem’s form and the narrator do their own thing, other queer women shouldn’t be afraid to be themselves even if they might be looked down on because of