Why I Am Yelling: A Brief Synopsis

Because the wolf is no longer at the gate. He closed the gate. On us. In here. With him. And you don’t seem to feel this rage terror I feel like bile closing off my throat. Why can’t you feel this?

Because a white feminist who was THERE FOR IT when I was bitching about men told me I was “too aggressive” when I said very similar things about white people.

Because in high school someone wrote DYKE on my locker in 5 inch tall block letters and I changed it to say “THE DYKE THAT FUCKS YOUR MOM.”

Because another time a boy told me I should be nice to him or he’d kick my fat dyke ass and I grabbed him by the back of the neck when we were alone and I whispered that there were a hundred of us and we were all coming for him and he never talked to me again.

And no one ever had to ask that girl why she was yelling. And she never felt like that question wasn’t a question but an admonishment.

To be clear: I never want to be her again, but she’s still me, and I need to be me.

Especially since I keep telling other people to be themselves.

Because the KKK is in Portland, where I thought I might be safe.

Just like the KKK was in Orange County where I got the education that, more than anything else, taught me how to talk like I had earned my place in this world.

By which I mean the world where I am erased into whiteness, and collapsed into womanhood. Where I experience the benefits of my passing, as long as I don’t get too smart or too weird or “too aggressive.”

But I was okay with that because I thought it meant safety.

So now I have to talk to the police like they serve me even when I am pants shitting scared they might put hands on me.

Because I almost forgot who I am. But not completely.

Most girls are rewarded for niceness. Especially white girls. And they are punished severely when they aren’t nice. “Nice girls don’t do that” frequently means that bad girls do… whether they want to or not.

But how many women get herded into compromising situations by rapists and other criminals because they didn’t want to be rude?

Because nobody told these nice girls that once you’re a bad girl… bad and a girl… bad at being a girl… the freedom of choice is yours. Sometimes you have to choose whether they fuck you or kill you trying. But that’s one more choice than a nice girl gets.

Because I learned at a young age that when you’re outmanned and outgunned, the last available move is to make them destroy you.

I was never rewarded for niceness. Niceness was a trap. Nice girls got raped. So I made my choice and I don’t regret it.

That young me, the one I worked so hard to forget being–the one I find myself looking and talking like more and more after so much money and so much practice to be somebody else–she thought this was a moral choice.

But it’s not. It’s a simple game of would you rather. Would you rather be a nice girl, or would you rather catch a beating?

Of course, that was only true in my house. But I carry it into the world like a universal truth. The only way I know to actually keep myself safe. If you can call it that.

Ultimately, I am yelling because I can take a punch, but I can’t take a dick and if the wolf really is inside the gates like I know he fucking is, it’s about time to make that choice and start that fight.