"White" by Andrea Wynands

WHITE.

Our society has held it high and defended it fiercely
(at the expense of honest history).
Each body that it uplifts,
As one of many “well earned” gifts,
Has in each eye a corrective lens
Which, not light, but power bends
Toward the wearer that we may see
Anything other than the disparities.
Blind to the safety, advantage, favour I get.
Blind to isolation, otherness, pain I beget,

UNTIL

I close my eyes to listen to my sisters’ stories.
Hold my tongue and let them give their own histories.
The anger and pain take up space.
If I acknowledge it, hot and wet, my own anger runs down my face.
It is uncomfortable, as the tears dislodge
My privilege, the lens that kept me in a fog.
But if I stop, what does that say?
That my current comfort matters more than their pain.

Pastor B. says this idol, too, must fall,
And who more equipped than I to answer that call
To join those who are chipping, piece by piece,
Away the systems and institutions of supremacy.