It is summer and it is not safe for our brown bodies to be out.
We contaminate everything we touch.
We are unfortunate ghetto displays
I refuse to make you feel enlightened today.
I don't care to " call you to action".
Right now someone will write you a beautiful moving essay about the struggle of pain they felt when it happened to them.
Even when we were supposedly over it. Someone else will will wax philosophic about believing t could not happen to their child/children/friends kids because time/location/class/money
was supposed to protect them this time.
Forget that there will be no " public pain" for this one .
I speak three going on four languages. And in none of them today will you here me talk about why I need you to fix this issue for me and " ease my pain"
Frankly fuck this and your " feel good campaigns".
I don't want to read nor write another essay about how you can feel good about your contribution to the great fucking utopia you imagine in your head.
I want to stop hearing words like " can't believe, and unreal and unbelievable".
Because all your telling me is when we say there is racism, you don't believe us .
All it tells me is that for every cred from the left to the right you flash, you still believe the ultimate decision of racism is up to you.
Save me your indignation that "forced you to write a letter".
All that says to me is that for you , a letter will fix this.
For these few morsels , it is expected that some vein will be slit open , some damaging memory laid forth , some heartache on display , attached like a post it note
" This one this time you should do something ,here's my soul to prove it"
Your shock and amazement and horror show me nothing except that when we spake and spoke and speak.
You do not listen, except for the show.
here you are excited because you can use your force your screaming your yelling.
And I will quietly think that every news source that looked like us... Had between two and three days ago.
Here is a time to be excited because you can be an advocate and ally perhaps experience the rush of .
And I will remember the silence of what happens when we ask that we work to make sure I don't need you to advocate for me all the time because the world believes me when I advocate for myself.
of when I ask that another brown baby doesn't heave and sigh and bear a weight larger that any bookbag, and remember to never hope for certain things because NOTHING could feel as awful as being disappointed like THIS.
That little girl can not have her hair in any way and have you
That still after all this the only way of being treated like an animal in a zoo, is to display a little more for your viewing pleasure.
Because truly we have to bleed and beg to be treated as human, because you are doing enough aren't you, because god you actually could care about us
Because really you only pay attention to us to feel good about yourselves , because as soon as it is "enough"
Really they are other things to worry about rather than stopping the pain
Like how much better you can feel than the next person when it happens again
Liek how much better you are than the people who ignored it , but none on how better you made it for us.
How strong will you ask us to be , how much will you ask us to bleed, till you remember that
maybe ust maybe we are telling the truth.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Ota to Ishi, Malia and Philly
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3 comments:
I don't know how to respond to this post in a way that isn't somehow saccharine-sounding or impotent. Still I wanted to tell you that I'm thinking of you, and this. xo
Yeah -- educating the privileged in ways that should be unnecessary is really the least important reason you should take the time to post.
Nobody should feel good about simply reading. That doesn't help anybody. It makes people feel somehow more "aware" but doesn't translate. The only action is action.
RE hearing words like "unreal" and "unbelievable" though. Yes, I think some slack should be cut there. People say those words when they're not surprised at all, but don't know what to say. I've reacted that way when someone tells me a relative died. Even where we all saw it coming, it just doesn't seem real. Most with their eyes open know that horrible bigotry exists, or have experienced it. But it can still seem unreal. Does that make any sense?
I just think the words people say when confronted with life's evils or tragedies aren't always logical, or reflective of what they believe, but emotional.
I don't think the people we should be sympathetic to here are those reacting to others' stories. But I do think it's important to understand the reactions. And of course, some are exactly what you say: unthinking, not getting it, and wanting it to be all about them and their "feel good." Others, though, are inarticulate with emotion: sadness, disgust, regret.
Grouping all of them in together is a nuance lost and an assumption made: that those who struggle to say the right thing are not making actual contributions. We don't know whether that person on the other end of the awkward comment is participating so she can feel hip and intersectional, or is involved in hands on human rights work.
RE the children in the pool. Not unreal at all, unfortunately. It happened to my sisters at a neighbor's pool growing up, after it didn't happen to me. And unfortunately, they knew it hadn't happened to me.
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