Tag: White supremacy

Stacey Abrams

~ Vanessa ~ Leave a comment

I am pigmented,
My color sets me apart, casts me out,
Of inclusion to this monolith of democracy,
Where I must work for a right that is supposedly given,
I cast my ballot,
And feel the power in the pen
In the slide as it is counted,
And the anxiety over whether it’s really included,
tallied.

My selection wins,
And still opposition demands more,
A recount, a means, a way,
Of disqualifying me and the like-minded voters,
We must barter for peace as our representatives confirm
The process is
Just,
Just one more ballot,
One more hanging chad,
One more missed mark to prove something is amiss,

But a black man won the seat in Georgia,
Damn now she’s colored blue,
Just,
Just one more recount,
One more way to trick the eye,
That won’t stop watching,
That has been trained not to trust,
From centuries of color-coded democratic process,
Featuring parlor tricks of poll taxes,
Id laws,
Limited sites to do your civic duty,
Threats of,
And Death,
Ancestors knew all of it,
So show me a true patriot,
She doesn’t need horns nor face paint,
To show her warrior pose.

Coup Attempt

~ Vanessa ~ Leave a comment

And then there was insurrection
At our front door,
Capital rushed,
And terrorists waltzed in,
Blanketed in white-
Privilege overfloweth,
Flags of treason flown on government stairs,
Be not fooled by shock,
The symptoms have long endured,
For the plague that is the cure,
Bloodletting,
Exposing the white supremacy
Rooted therein

And They Came With Guns

~ Vanessa ~ Leave a comment

Credit: AFP / Getty

And they came with guns,
Angry,
Determined to end,
The restrictions set forth,
The vinyl gloved,
Masked nose and mouth,
6 feet of distance restrictions,
Priorities first precautions,
Laid forth to try,
Try as we may,
To stifle the exponential death,
Befalling the masses,
Reducing the number of graves of masses,
And they came with guns,
Claiming freedom or death,
Not recognizing death is already the prime player,
Death is the face staring back,
At the fool who only wants “to live free or die”,
Publicly choosing the former,
When living free means accepting death,
For one and all,
Living free,
Without precautions,
Without boundaries set,
For petulant children,
Is choosing mortality,
For each,
And all, unequally,
Death distributed,
Just like it is with liberty and justice;
For all?
And they came with guns,
Masked pale skinned
“Patriots”,
Demanding freedom of mobility,
Before a plague,
Ignoring their fallibility,
They were fearless,
For before a white supremacist society
They had nothing to fear,
Their intimidation,
Was intimidating,
But made no threat to the true establishment,
And they came with guns

Cutting Hair & Other Tales

~ Vanessa ~ Leave a comment

As they cut her hair,
Did they know their legacy?
Surely not,
Though it’s ingrained in everything
They’ve ever been taught,
Implicit and explicit,
Did they feel the weight of each lock,
As it fell to the floor?
The weight of feet torn from land,
Land torn from feet;
Of shackles and brands;
Of false emancipation;
Of separate but “equal”;
Of jumpin’ Jim Crow;
Of rope;
Of crosses, burning and imposed;
Of color blind racism;
Of a new apartheid;
Of always being an alien
In a land deemed ones own?

No.
Of course they didn’t feel it,
Even if they knew it,
They’ll never have such weight to bare,
The racial contract has made it so,
And on and on the story goes,
Adding another lesson to the tales,
This 3 white boys
Who cut the young black girl’s hair.

The Illusion

~ Vanessa ~ Leave a comment

There has been a crack
In me
And I am open,
Yoke exposed,
I am taking in, taking on, trying on
The world in ways I’ve never before seen,
And I am aware of
The illusion in which we swim,
I am aware,
And tempted to scream it from the mountain tops,
But that is not my mission,
I thought knowledge was,
My mission involves learning
To swim through the illusion in a different way,
I have not found out yet how,
But I am open,
Finding pieces of my broken shell,
And reassembling self,
Equipping for this mission,
To be in and of the world,
To simultaneously see, not see, taste, touch, and transform the illusion.

Reparations

~ Vanessa ~ Leave a comment

We don’t belong here,
Most of us,
All of us,
We are squatters,
Claimants to possessions,
To lives, to land,
To stories that are not ours,
That are not meant to be owned,
And still we are a legacy,
Of conquerors,
Thefting still,
Without acknowledgement,
Often without knowledge,
Of the very sins we are committing,
This is our history,
Our story,
The ending is never written,
It is living by our means
And I wish to live love
And reparations into this Act.