iresha writes on quirky black girls:

I have been pondering
what “crazy” means for Women, especially Black Women who has been
labeled by their Black family members, Black boyfriends and girlfriends
as “crazy”. A word that I have been called over and over again in my
life. A word that I think silences Women from saying wild and dangerous
things or owning their own “crazy” thoughts. In my family I have heard
this word thrown at Women like it’s an adjective to describe their
beings. Yet, I cannot remember an instance when my male family members
have been called that. It’s almost like it’s a disrespectful word to
call a man crazy but for a Woman, you a given a green light to use the
word…

I was speaking to my father a couple of weeks ago and he
mentioned that I was talking “crazy”, when I stated that someone whom
was working over fifty hours a week in a job that they do not love, was
a lifeless person and I refuse to live a life like that (which is
something that he has done his whole life). My father answered back
with the aforementioned “crazy” comment. It immediately silenced me,
and I guess that was his way of intentionally shutting me up.

i have recently come to accept my craziness. by that i mean my ‘extreme mental/emotional states’.  now i, like iresha, spent alot of my years growing up and into adulthood being called crazy.  and not wow! you are crazy we really need to sit down and listen to you and understand what you are saying because you are human and thus us not understanding you means that some part of the human experience is still alien to us.  no, that is not the reaction to being called crazy. 

instead crazy is used as that verbal slap across the face to put you in your place.  women are crazy.  and women of color are definitely crazy.  the further away you are from the center, the more on the margins you live, the crazier you are.  of course you are crazy.  anyone who had as little social power as you do…how could you be anything but crazy?

when someone calls me crazy now (and when they dont mean it admiringly or in solidarity…as in girl, we all crazy…) i know that they are saying, noting, that i have stopped giving a fuck about what the center thinks of me.  i have stopped trying to push down doors into spaces that dont want me.  i have given up on the myth of racial or gender or alternative sexuality progress.  i am talking like that shit dont matter no more.  i am talking and acting like i, we, can figure it out ourselves.  i am saying that their power aint seducing this body to perform for them.  if i sell my body/mind/spirit/love/vision, it will be because i think its worth it to me, not because they, the ones in power, think its worth it to me. 

yes. i have extreme mental states.  i have visions.  i talk to goddesses on a regular bases.  plants talk to me.  i hear others thoughts when i pass them on the street.  my baby sang to me in the womb.  i get tense and anxious when folks start acting oppressive.  i laugh at loud at jokes others didnt know were funny.  i get depressed when i let the world inside of me.  and i wake up from dreams and am amazed that we, women of color, are not extinct. 

fuck yeah.  i am crazy.  trying real hard not adjust to this world. 

call me crazy.  call me weird. call me whatever you like.  just dont be surprised when i dont pick up the phone.