#breakingsilence

- Lauren Holton 

Just because of the melanin in my skin I am seen as aggressive.

But if I had no pigmentation I would be seen as passive, no passion.

Just doing whatever the white man tells me.

Is that why you bury me in lies to disguise my true presence?

Is it because I’m a queen that endures heart aches and heart shatters.

Picking up the broken pieces and putting them back together.

Trying to stand tall against the ignorance and the oppression of my colorful brothers and sisters who hide behind lies that hold them captive,

To think, color signifies no hope and that it’s the root of depression

Sadly, a white world seems more attractive.

Because they’re blinded by the stigma that seeds the deception that white skin and non-nigga rooted hair is better.

So I listen, and try to pry off the cataract’s of distress that had me feeling as if I were less.

Due to the seed of discrimination and that disease of self-hate.

To compare myself to a tone of skin when I can be the voice to change a tone of a nation that’s inflicted with hatred

Black men hating black women and white men hating anyone who is not mutated.

I find it hard to win a battle where I’m drowning, 

Suffocating  in the arrogance of the privilege .

Arms flaring out panicky, screaming for help,

But my brothers and sisters feel I’m overly dramatic,

Selling their selves short to a society that’s systematic,

That thrive off the backs of the innocence and deprive them of humanity.

No longer will I settle for the injustice in this nation, the injustice of my neighbor

I will use my aggression for the betterment of my people.

A trait seen on black women as being negative,

But seen on white women as being persistent.

See, I find it contradicting,

To take a characteristic and flip it due to the color of my pigment

And then you try to dismiss it,

And use your lies to subject a race to a trait that really doesn’t have a negative indication.

And then you want me to be submissive,

To live in false calumnies that discourage me to see what God truly instilled in me.

So now I become resistant,

Waterproof to the paradigms of your ignorance that define me by false realities,

Armored up with God on one side and a sword to kill all calamity, 

And you can’t restrain me,

Blamelessly breaking down the foundations that were established to offset and oppress a people who were ripped of their identity,

That got stuck in a slave system that was revolutionized to adapt to modern society 

In 2017, I had the assignment of writing a research paper on a social problem that we face every day in America, and it was almost immediate that I knew I wanted to write about rape culture in America. I have always been a girls’ girl in a sense, not the fake love and support because I work for a pyramid scheme company and my bills rely on their purchases. More so, I would never leave a girl…

We are not liabilities. We are living, breathing declarations of truth. In a world that normalizes erasure, our existence is revolution.

These systems thrive on silence. They were not built for us, but they will not break us.

Remember: visibility is an act of defiance. Every day we choose to be seen is a day we win. Our struggle is infinite, but so is our resilience.

Ever thought about how messed up it is that some people can’t even talk about their trauma without it being brushed aside? Picture this: no social media, no memes, no cryptic tweets with a Taylor Swift lyric to express your pain. All you have is your voice. These women turned lullabies, folk songs, and even casual conversation into codes - like an OG version of sub tweeting.

Now, imagine being a Vietnamese woman during the war. The stuff they went through - sexual violence, loss, and unspeakable pain - was happening right under the radar. But here’s the crazy part: these women didn’t have the luxury of just speaking out. Society wasn’t having it. So, what did they do? They got clever. They turned everyday language into a secret code, using lullabies, folk songs, and even casual conversation to spill the truth about their suffering. Sounds wild, they couldn’t just shout “I’m hurting” because the world wasn’t listening, so they embedded their pain in hidden messages. Like, imagine writing a post but using emojis that only certain people would understand - same vibe, just way more intense. These women became masters of coded language, slipping their stories of trauma into songs and conversations that seemed innocent to the untrained ear. It wasn’t just survival; it was resistance. They were screaming for help without ever actually screaming. So, how do you think you’d survive if the only way to speak up was through hidden signals? Would you have the courage to decode and listen? Because these women, despite everything, found a way to make their voices heard - loud and clear, even if the world wasn’t ready to listen.

Let’s talk about “Con Cò Bé Bé” (Little Stork). At first glance, it’s just a lullaby about a stork and a baby, right? But, like a lot of things in history, what’s seen isn’t always what’s heard. Underneath this seemingly sweet, soothing melody lies a whole world of unspoken trauma. The stork, in this case, isn’t just a bird - it’s a metaphor for the things that were taken away. The woman singing this lullaby isn’t just calming her child; she’s whispering the agony of losing loved ones, of war, of violence, and the heartbreak of a peace that never arrived. If you didn’t know the context, it might sound like a pretty innocent song, right? But for those who had been through the pain, it was an unspoken truth. That’s the power of coded language - when you can’t outright say what’s really going on, you bury it in things that seem innocent. And this wasn’t the only lullaby like this.

Take “Bèo Dạt Mây Trôi” (Floating Water Lily), for instance. On the surface, it’s another lullaby, another cute story. But dig deeper, and you’ll find it's actually a woman’s tale of being lost, drifting away from everything she knows - something many women during the war could relate to as they dealt with their own displacement and loss. These lullabies were like secret passwords passed down, like messages from one generation to the next. Imagine that: a woman singing to her child, passing down her pain and resilience in the form of a song, knowing that the child would grow up understanding that this wasn’t just a bedtime tune - it was a survival song, a quiet scream for the world to hear.

Scholars like Nguyen Thi Minh Thien (2020) and Le Thi Hoa (2021) have broken down the hidden genius of these coded lullabies, calling them "resilient acts of rebellion" that allowed women to survive in silence. Thien argues that these songs were a form of resistance - not in the typical protest sense, but as a quiet, everyday rebellion against the oppression and violence of war. This wasn’t about marching in the streets or shouting in the face of the government, it was about survival in its most subtle form. Think about it - what do we do today when we can’t directly speak out? We tweet, we post memes, we make art. These women didn’t have that privilege. They sang. And through these melodies, they embedded coded messages of grief, trauma, and resistance, all while hiding it in plain sight. It’s almost like an ancient version of what we do now with subtle activism - like using “cancel culture” to critique power dynamics or embedding resistance in pop culture references. Hoa, on the other hand, takes this a step further, claiming that these lullabies were the cornerstone of cultural survival. They weren’t just preserving memories - they were actively keeping their identities alive in the face of genocide and war. So, when you think about it, these songs weren’t just lullabies - they were an entire survival manual for women navigating the worst. They turned their pain into an art form, one that’s survived across generations. And honestly, if we’re ever in a similar situation today, wouldn’t we do the same?

Just think - how many times have you shared an inside joke or meme that only your closest friends get? This isn’t that much different. What’s the true power of a “coded language”? It’s that it allows us to keep our voice, our stories, and our history alive - without ever needing to shout. And now, here’s the million-dollar question: if the only way you could tell your story was through hidden messages, would you? Could you? And more importantly, would anyone bother to decode it? These women proved that even in silence, their voices were louder than the world ever expected. The least we can do now is listen.

CITATION

Nguyen Thi Minh Thien. 2020. The Role of Folk Songs in Preserving History.

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