To those who protest on why they should say the word *****
Unfollow me

To those whose heart does not mourn over an innocent life of POC
Unfollow me

To those who yell "go back to Africa"
Unfollow me
if you cannot comprehend that your ancestors where not here first

To those who fail to understand their white privilege
Unfollow me

To those who scream out "what about black on black crime"
Unfollow me
If you're blind to the multiple genocide your people create and label as "war"

To those who simply choose to ignore this injustice
Unfollow me for no action at all is the greatest injustice of all

I am 15 years old and when my home is too full of rage for me to fit, I squeeze out of the cracked walls so I can meet up with my Black boyfriend in a park across my neighborhood.

This one time in the spring rain he told me he loved me and it felt like magic was real.

I step into a well maintained 1997 conversation van

Watch the conqueror dance across my Brown father’s lips
He turns the key in the ignition and looks at me with the kind of fear I don’t understand
His voice drips inside of my skull like honey or venom

“The world is harder when you’re with them”

I sit in silence because I know that wasn’t a question
and we are late for my dentist appointment anyway

So, I cling to the arm of every Brown lover.

When I’m alone I escape
Google: what is racism
Google: how to not be racist
Google: can Mexicans be racist?

.

I am 8 years old sitting upright in my bed
I pray to a White looking God that he will fix me.

I bargain with him for blue eyes that sit flush against my face
Hair that looks like the girls on TV
Just cut this big, ugly nose off of me, I don’t even need one  

I will do anything
I just want to be normal.

At school, my friend Kaylee tells me that I can’t come to her birthday party because her mom says mutts
aren’t allowed in her house.

A week later there is a new girl in school who speaks Spanish

The teacher sits her next to me. I say hello and apologize with my smile for not knowing the right way to say her name

I understand we are not the same.

.

I am 22 years old and somewhat college educated.
I refuse to apply for any scholarship labeled “Latino” because they aren’t for me.

¡And on my life!
I’m not gong to be just another White girl who claims to be 1/16th Cherokee.

My social justice warrior friends and I all discuss our privileges and oppressions
We map them out in increasingly complex narratives
Lay them on the table like constellations

I learn about White guilt, White fragility

When my Brown father asks what I’m studying, he tries not to scoff.
He owns toilet paper with Barack Obama’s face on it.
He’s a Virgo.

In the summer, I transcend.
My skin never burns like my friends’
Instead, it glistens like predators’ eyes.

“Wow, you actually look Mexican! I hardly recognize this picture of you”

.

I am sitting at the kiosk in the mall where I work.

The wealthy White woman comes up to me and coos over my long dark hair
She grabs a handful for herself 
Marvels, asks where I am really from.

So long as I annunciate clearly, correctly
Answer politely when they ask me
“What are you?”

So long as I remove all of that unsightly black hair that White women never have sprouting from their *******.

No one will ever see the teeth shaped scars on my tongue
I tell myself I am “protector”

.

I am 27 years old and living in the Whitest city in the universe.



My coworkers invite me to join the POC affinity group
POC means Person of Color
My POC-ness fits me like an expensive gift two sizes too large



Suddenly, I am alone on an island built of the correct pronunciation of Chorizo
But I’m vegan now so I buy the expensive soy kind from Trader Joe’s

.

On a dating app,
A Black man from somewhere else breaks the ice
“FINALLY! It’s so lovely to meet you. Really, it is just such a lovely thing to know you. Wow. Hello. I can never find POC around here!”

I explain to him I am an imposter.

He is a very sweet man, touches my cheek
“We are people of the sun, and we are beautiful”

I only remember this moment when I am too high.
Is this feeling guilt, or fragility?

.

After an exhausting holiday season,
I sit in front of my expensive laptop reading an email,
But in my mind I am in the heart of downtown LA in 1989


He must have run from the top of the tower of LA fitness on his last day of
Working for The Man in an impressive office
Making good money
Having something to show for himself

A flurry of gray suits and flying papers
Anything for a chance to meet The Greatest

When Muhammad Ali met my Brown father
And saw the photograph freshly removed from it’s frame
Of a young Black man sitting upon a jewel encrusted throne
Eyes fixed to the future somewhere

When he tells the story, he says that Ali smiled
Exhaled a chuckle  
“Well, I’ll be dammed. Is that me?”

My Brown father keeps this treasure away somewhere safe
So he can look upon it
While he sits at home in his White neighborhood
With White carpet
That he will always walk on with his shoes.
.
I like to think he feels powerful, my Brown father,
When he sees a king that reminds him of himself.
Someone who learned how to channel all of his rage
And never lose his affinity for butterflies

The email reads:

Howdy,
I don’t remember if I have sent this to you. Regardless, you should save this interview. I know that Ali was the "Greatest", even though I didn't like everything he did or said.  Much like John Lennon. Told it like it is, both of them! These two are iconic. I am extremely happy to have had these two in my life. I hope you enjoy

Peace, Love,
Dad

Attached, he includes a video of a television interview recorded in the year 1971.

“Why is everything White?”

“Do we go to heaven, too?”

.
I’m walking through my grandmother’s neighborhood deep in East LA.
A concrete safari
Where safety looks like pointy steel bars across every window.

This is the street my Brown father was caught playing with cherry bombs
And then beaten.

The rose bushes in the back yard have lived here for decades.
If they could eat, they would have been fed handmade tortillas up until the day they started to sell the pre-made ones in the store.

Grandpa, why do we call her Grandma Melon?
Because when I ask to kiss her, she says ‘Oh, honey do!’
It’s quite the crowd pleaser, everyone laughs because we came here to get along

But I like her real name so in my mind I call her Magdalena.

In this neighborhood, Tia Rita, Tia Lola, and Grandma like to go to bingo together
And get their hair done
And watch old westerns where the White man always saves the girl in the end.

Later we will go to Omana’s in Pomona where my cousin Jason swears that one day he found a human knuckle in his carnitas.

Half of us believe him, but we order another round anyways because we know it’s the best taqueria this side of the 10.

Just up the road is a building where young Brown men go to enlist
So they might escape neighborhoods with so many cracked walls.

My Brown father was sent to Texas
Looked White men straight in their red, swollen faces
“You ain’t White, you ain’t right boy”
But that was a long time ago.

After lunch, he reminds me why he left this place
“The traffic is *******, the noise”
Besides, nothing quells violence inside of us quite like the trees and rivers back home.


But, Dad, I am White, right?

.

When I see my White mother my heart swells with love.

Who taught her to laugh like that?
With all of her teeth and joy

She wishes she knew how to give me a quinceanera
or what to do with my unruly hair.

Neither of us know, really, so every Christmas she buys me something to burn my hair into submission.

I stopped using them a few years ago, now
But they have a forever home in the back of my linen closet
Just in case

When my Brown father tells me he sees a goodness in her
I taste each homemade birthday cake
And agree

In my Brown father’s mind he is “protector”
After all, what more could he have given me than an easier life?

.

It’s Sunday morning in the year 2002.
Dad made us eggs and hot dogs and perfect toast

Our house is always filled with music

When no-one is around to see
He will sit in his chair
Listen to John Lennon

He will tell me that no man is perfect
But that all you need is love

It always makes me laugh

I see my father in everyone.

this is for the queer kids
who are taught their ABC's
but not their L's, G's, B's and T's
for the Russian government and the I.O.C
who deny Russian queers their visibility
to the people who call me "******"
i wear your name-calling like a pink triangle
stitched to my sleeve
for the Harvey Milk's, the Christine Burns'
and every queer in between
to the allies who do more than say
"your sexuality is okay with me"
for the Jamaican trans* teen
who was murdered needlessly
to the television networks
who portray LGBT individuals positively
for the radical queers
the POC queers
the genderqueers
the queers who have felt excluded
this is for you
for us
this is a celebration
and an ultimatum
we are here
we are queer
& we will do more
than survive.

my loves, the many accumulated mn-
eumonic responses play'd on future
women. ideas based on the poiv-
rottes of idealized affectation past.
cesspools emptied by the horse-tanks
with stelth in the night, but the-
re couldn't be much stealth for a target
reeking of **** and convalescence.
sadness and that odor would
hang heavy in the first cold rains
of winter. transplanting thoughts,
always transplanted emotions of
subjugation. she was waiting for
someone, this now past but once
future poivrotte. feet to be
knock'd from under, body to find
lulling embrace. mind the levitat-
ing affect. mind, the missing
portion of our feint'd love.
and
  - I was always empty and
    both sad and happy
with a third-class train ride, at
mon poivrottes' expense of mentality.
we could used to lay together talk-
king in adult tones through our
child mouths. remembering to poc-
ket fruit to retain our breakfast
from freezing. speaking no truer
words than those utter'd while
embraced. words from the mou-
ths of us children. truer words
never could be counterfeit, never
could be spoken without loss of
conscience. Cezanne-dreams of color,
Impressionist subconscious,
j'adore mon poivrottes. feasting of mo-
vement and staining all around with
the strong cafe au lait. follow'd aper-
itif, following digestifs, following back
to lie. to flow words from our child mo-
uths, we would walk paths through the
woods in the Autumn twilight. the trees
were sculptures having their leaves
stripped bare. walking alongside, we walk'd
ourselves down the same separate path.

1 An aura radiates from her
2 I see red, yellow
3 Swinging her soft sepia shaded hair
4 She turns to look at me
5 Enticing ebony eyes
6 Beautiful brown, bare skin
7 A gorgeous woman
8 She smiles so slowly
9 Passionate, prosperous, perfect
10 She’s so perfect
11 The highlight on her nose
12 And cheekbones
13 They shine so bright
14 Red, like love
15  Intelligence is immune
16  To the ignorance that surrounds her
17  A woman of color
18  Never knew anything other than
19  “Sit straight, speak up, stop,
20  Shake it off”
21  Knew nothing but struggle
22  Yellow, like the sun
23  Beauty beams bright
24  Long lasting light
25  She stands strong.

the boy has a match
                       in his back poc ket. hovering
                                                     janky steps
                                             sheathed by fluffy ice
                       chest reverb erates
as a single rain drop
                                   trickled in pinful loop...
theforestwaits
                            Undisturbed
not wanting to be burnt but he rations
      not wanting anything at all.
in destroying one makes                                something

                    whence once

     there was                                                       nothing. he

s t r i k e s the match aflame and alive,
    l
      o
         w ering it fit to spread
and surely cause his life some havoc... havoc...
havochavochavoc
                                  HAVOC
                               H A V O C
                                                   havoc;

   he ruminates the meaning of the word a while
and settles
    on it being better than boring old nothing.

i don't have a poem, but a plea.

hello poetry is an escape from real life for a lot of us, me included, but real life needs us right now.

the #blacklivesmatter movement is louder than ever and if you're not a person of color, or if you are but you also benefit from the system in place that depends on the destruction of black and brown people, now is your time to stand up.

stand with those at the protests, use your voice, your platform, your privilege to raise up your fellow black voices. and educate yourself on whats going on if you haven't already, because this is just the beginning.

this is global now. all over the world people in countries like UK, Germany, Canada, and many others are taking to the streets in a peaceful protest of the ****** of Georgoe Floyd, and so so many other Black men and women. a protest of the blatent police brutality in cities all over the world, brutality that mainly targets black skinned and brown skinned people. a protest for real honest ******* change, that will ripple through country to country.

this is a revolution. do not be silent.

go out and protest if you can. donate to the georgefloyd gofundme, to the bail outs for the protesters who were wrongfully arrested. spread awareness where you can. lift up black and other poc voices, and don't give up.

I never even knew I was different. And by different I mean not white.
My mom has green eyes and light skin with freckles. She has brown hair that beautifully sprouts white strands sometimes, but she's never not beautiful. Or never not has green eyes, or light skin with freckles.

I have brown skin. No freckles, and eyes that look like almonds that didn't make it into the bag, in shape and color. My skin is dry. Except my face. My skin is more than one shade of brown, especially on my face. My skin is stretched. Never been tight. My skin reminds me of a potato, not so much "cafe con leche" like my nana says.

I grew up in this white town, with white people, and white expectations. I was never allowed not to act like a child because children of color are barely seen as children. I was never allowed to run or yell like the white kids on the playground because that made me look like I hadn't been "raised right".

I could never sit on the lunch benches outside like the other kids because the yard-ladies would only see my brown skin in the sea of whiteness and only tell me to not sit there.

I could never struggle in academics because that meant my hispanic mother didn't invest in my "academic success" and CPS would show up and ask me questions about whether my mom loved me or not. My mom worked three jobs, and saw us for less than three hours a day. she worked so she could invest in our success.

I couldn't say I was hungry because that meant my family was too poor and couldn't feed me. And then have CPS show up and ask to see the fridge. [I wasn't actually hungry, it's just that  by the time I was 7 I had developed an eating disorder because I had no idea how to cope with anxiety].

I could never not listen to authority because it wasn't teenage rebellion, it would qualify me for special behavior programs targeted towards "troubled youth" and we all know that's code for "kids of color who won't make it past  without being put in jail, being *****, pregnant at least once, or dying-- and by dying I mean killed by the system... choose any system because they're all designed to **** POC anyway".

I could never play in the sun during the summer with my white latinx cousins because the sun is not a brown girl's friend. The sun made my skin dark and made my aunt's hiss about my color to my mom and how she shouldn't let us out without sunscreen because we'd turn into "negritas", and that's what we shouldn't want.

I could never love myself because that doesn't exist when you aren't white. I mean, how do you love a body with thick brown hair, cracked skin, and a nose that doesn't look like Cinderella's?  I mean, how can you love a body that doesn't look like anyone in the new J-14 magazine? I mean how do you love a body that's never seen the sun because she's scared of being too dark because then shes's ugly? I mean, how does a brown girl even love herself?