Wednesday, July 13, 2016

TO WHITE PARENTS WITH BROWN BABIES, A POEM

I've always wondered what people of color do when they have a white parent that claims to be colorblind or willfully misinterprets "race is a social construct" into "race does not exist or it wouldn't if you'd just ignore it."

This poem, sort of, answers the question.



It is damn difficult to deal with white supremacy coming at you from every direction in society. I can't even imagine it coming at you from inside your own family. 


I tend to think Zoe Saldana making "Nina" is what you get when the kid doesn't recognize what these girls have recognized.
Of course, there are lots of ways a family can be dysfunctional, some having nothing to do with race. But in the case of a white parent (or a black parent for that matter) reproducing white supremacy inside your own home, that is a triple whammy, isn't it? For example, I could escape the family dysfunction by leaving the house.  If white white privilege and/or white supremacy is the family dysfunction, then leaving the house just puts you into a different version of the very same thing, doesn't it? 




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