Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Silk Blindfold

Privilege blinds
When non-melanated voices
Clamor about rioting in Baltimore streets
Prefaced by silence about Freddie Grey
The terrorist attack in Garissa, Kenya
And the kidnapping of the Chibok girls by Boko Haram
Are mere blips on the radar
While Charlie Hebdo gets primetime
I don’t have to wonder
Why #BlackLivesMatter
Because
They only matter most to other Black lives
Black on Black crime is the same as White on White Crime
Yet only one has a term
It’s easier to kill your neighbor next door
Who looks like you
Than to go cross town and shot a stranger

Privilege blinds
Some have the audacity and stupidity
To talk about race
To talk about being colored
To talk about being Black
When they have a choice
Of being English Irish French German Italian Danish
Or just plain ol vanilla white
What else can I be other than Black?
What else can I be other than Ugandan American?
I know as much about being White
As some do about being Black
I know what they say about assumptions
So to avoid making an ass out of you and me
I keep quiet
I observe
I listen

Privilege blinds
Even to the fact that one is blinded
One has the capacity to create what is satisfactory
Eschewing all that goes against the perfect picture
Before the laws, the practices, the regulations
Society holds up White supremacy with our minds
Society supports it with our thoughts
Because when a form of protest
Becomes more problematic
Than issue that is being protested
And no solutions are given
Then what are we seeing?
Where is the clarity?
We are so far gone
In a surreal post racial experience
As some frolic with happiness
They never notice
That they are dancing on graves

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