I don’t think we are to blame for the environments we grew up in and the beliefs that we were taught but I sure as hell think we are responsible for finding ways to identify and rewrite them as we grow up. We are raised in a culture that normalizes searching for and identifying differences to use as ammunition. Nothing can fuel hate greater than a case of misunderstanding and if we say you’re different, naturally you’ll feel like you don’t understand them. Naturally, you’ll start gravitating away from the word understanding, taking it as an attack, a lessening of personal experience.
I remember having a problem with the way countries work, struggling with the idea that we stop caring about humans based on where they live and what imaginary boundaries they are across. I still don’t understand how we strip away the humanness of other people based on the differences we find. Sometimes I think it’s why I’ve found boundaries so hard to manage, constantly filled with the urge to consider someone else’s wellbeing, often so heavily I forget my own.
Sometimes I’m worried that I’ll say something offensive, but we can’t rewrite our beliefs by leaving the hard topics unmentioned.
Black
I try to explain my fondness for traditionally black names without sounding racist
But then I say no – not the modern black names, the older more soulful ones
As if I’ve been conditioned to associate blackness with struggle
But I’m trying to explain that I mean it in a powerful way, I see it as overcoming
I try to explain what I mean when I say sometimes I feel like I relate to black people
But I know I can’t say that because I don’t know what they experience, go through
Only it’s been assumed that I mean I relate to their struggles
But I can’t find words to explain that I relate to head-on facing challenges and overcoming
I try to explain how the world thrusts this responsibility onto certain groups of people
But I’m realizing it’s only ever to deflect from taking the responsibility to face their own
I’m considering that white privilege is the ability to succeed without ever having to grow
But I wonder what the point in life is if you’re not ever actually going to grow
I try to explain that I don’t think anyone really knows how to talk without sounding racist – pitted against each other
But I know I never come from a place of ill intent, just wanting to understand
I don’t believe struggles are ever as unique as we make them out to be
But I also can’t find the courage to say, same, we’re working with variations of the same hand
Much love, until next time.
Madeline May I... 