Tyffine Jones

I am a 27-year-old, third generation out of my family, first in my own family, to receive a high school diploma, and to graduate from Jackson State University in three years. I believed my grandmother when I was little when she unwittingly told me that I was supposed to do great things. I have a song to sing and it remains "Justice and the Pursuit of Happiness".

Feminism was never something I had to learn, I did not even know there was a name for it. In my family, women always were the Head of Household. I was more frightened of my English teacher grandmother than any man that has been in and out of my life. When I last remember seeing my father, I was 5 years old; my grandfather is the closest I've ever come to a father figure.

Struggling, being a double minority, seems to be the tactic Mississippi uses in order to continue inequality and constant injustices that happen every 6 minutes. After joining NOW, I stepped up to the plate and revealed I had an abortion in order to continue with school — I didn't want a GED, I was in honors classes, 1st chair in the Band, and was a soloist in my choir. I would have been the stereotypical "pregnant bush baby", a phrase which my community constantly emitted in the air whenever they got together. You see, much like Africa and her denial of the strength and power of how AIDS has affected her land, the people regard it as being insolent or would much rather choose denial. Here in Mississippi, choice is done the same way. "If I can't physically see it, therefore, it does not exist". Here equality only appears to the well off. My choice was all I had; I'd lost the boyfriend because I chose to love myself.

The day of the abortion, walking down the block, because I didn't want my friends or their parents to see, I made a dash for the clinic, only to be approached by our infamous "anti-choicers" — they were shouting, pointing, making me feel less than I actually felt I was at the time. "You're going to hell — I want to see my momma — Protect Life" were some of the chants I had to physically and mentally push through. I was spit on and at my lowest point, I felt a warm hand on my shoulder... it was a nurse in the clinic... I was saved... in more ways than one. I have never once stated that what I did was easy, but I had the right to choose. I don't want to be in Section 8 housing, receiving welfare checks and sitting waiting for my 5th child to be born (just thought I'd let you know what the sterotype of African-American women was). I wanted to be just like Fannie Lou Hamer, Angela Davis, and Maya Angelou when I grew up.

Mississippi believes that if we teach abstinence, that will stop all the molesting and underaged rape, and that is not the answer. Last year, I consented to being questioned by the senate about my abortion, and I went public in Ms. magazine. I forgave myself and I want to tell my story to save other lives who feel that they can't make a decision on their own, they can look at my life and understand the consequence of falling; it's up to you on how you take care of your scar. Being human is to make mistakes, but it is unforgivable not to learn from them...

My favorite quotes of life are as follows:

" There is one thing you got to learn about our movement. Three people are better that no people."
-Fannie Lou Hamer

"Sometimes I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It's beyond me."
-Zora Neale Hurston

"In my heart. I think a woman has two choices: either she's feminist or a masochist."
-Gloria Steinem

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