Give Your Daughters Difficult Names — Assétou Xango

Give your daughters difficult
names.

Names that command the full use of
the tongue.

My name makes you want to tell me
the truth.

My name does not allow me to trust
anyone

who cannot pronounce it right.”

—Warsan Shire

Many of my contemporaries,

role models,

But especially,

Ancestors

Have a name that brings the tongue
to worship.

Names that feel like ritual in your
mouth.

I don’t want a name said without
pause,

muttered without intention.

I am through with names that leave
me unmoved.

Names that leave the speaker’s
mouth unscathed.

I want a name like fire,

like rebellion,

like my hand griping massa’s whip—

I want a name from before the ships

A name Donald Trump might choke on.

I want a name that catches you in
the throat

if you say it wrong

and if you’re afraid to say it
wrong,

then I guess you should be.

I want a name only the brave can
say

a name that only fits right in the
mouth of those who love me right,

because only the brave

can love me right

Assétou Xango is the name you take
when you are tired

of burying your jewels under thick
layers of

soot

and self-doubt.

Assétou the light

Xango the pickaxe

so that people must mine your soul

just to get your attention.

If you have to ask why I changed my
name,

it is already too far beyond your
comprehension.

Call me callous,

but with a name like Xango

I cannot afford to tread lightly.

You go hard

or you go home

and I am centuries

and ships away

from any semblance

of a homeland.

I am a thief’s poor bookkeeping
skills way from any source of ancestry.

I am blindly collecting the
shattered pieces of a continent

much larger than my comprehension.

I hate explaining my name to
people:

their eyes peering over my journal

looking for a history they can
rewrite

Ask me what my name means…

What the fuck does your name mean
Linda?

Not every word needs an English
equivalent in order to have significance.

I am done folding myself up to fit
your stereotype.

Your black friend.

Your headline.

Your African Queen Meme.

Your hurt feelings.

Your desire to learn the rhetoric
of solidarity

without the practice.

I do not have time to carry your
allyship.

I am trying to build a continent,

A country,

A home.

My name is the only thing I have
that is unassimilated

and I’m not even sure I can call it
mine.

The body is a safeless place if you
do not know its name.

Assétou is what it sounds like when
you are trying to bend a syllable

into a home.

With shaky shudders

And wind whistling through your
empty,

I feel empty.

There is no safety in a name.

No home in a body.

A name is honestly just a name

A name is honestly just a ritual

And it still sounds like reverence.

Related Posts