This is a poem I wrote as the Black Lives Matter movement started gaining momentum. It’s about learning how to be a good ally and doing anti-racism work as a white woman.
I don’t want to be like the white women who came before me.
I don’t want to follow in the footsteps of my foremothers
who for one reason or another
obscured the footprints they were trying to walk alongside.
I don’t want to be like those white women.
Freedom writing,
free them bright kids from dark homes,
freedom writing when they should have been freedom listening,
resisting the urge to talk over
in attempts to talk with.
I work with black and brown kids
but I don’t want to carry on the white woman legacy
of helping “serve” little black boys
but pursing her tight lips
and tightening the lips of her purse
as she walks by their older brothers.
And when I write grants
I don’t want to pander to white readers
slandering black leaders
kids’ parents, their teachers
call ourselves a “safehaven”
as if our kids need saving
unbravely unquestioning
not wrestling
with the words I write in order to get
white money.
I don’t want to use the phrase
“at-risk youth”
instead of brilliant, resilient, impressive child blessings.
And I don’t want to be like my white peers
who watch Real Housewives but “only of Atlanta”
who make jokes about a coping skill serving
one of our kids well in jail.
She’s 7.
(so was Aiyana)
who demand respect as if it’s a one way street
where you’re the only car on the road,
run them down if they jaywalk
Sound familiar?
I don’t want to be like them
and I want to catch myself when I am.
I want to be caught and I want to be taught
instead of caught up in teaching.
I want to be seething
and not complicit.
Choking the system
instead of breathing with it.
Choking the system
instead of watching as it chokes them.
And yes I said them.
Because I am still a white woman
and the word us does not apply here.
But it does apply to allyship
allies who rip
apart the words of other white folks
allies who use our privilege like a soapbox
hoping not
to feel too noble while up there,
vocal but aware
that though we did not earn that step up
we have the chance to use it.
I don’t want to be just another white woman
who does nothing but sympathize
and stand by
while the symphony of lies
gets more and more cacophonous
from those with a Wilson/Caucasian wish
to stay shielded from our demons.
So I will try my best to be another sort of white woman
and this is how I’ll start
with art
with part
of a new kind of
Freedom Writing.
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