Black nor
White
When we are either
Benefitting from
Proximity
to whiteness
Or when we are fleetingly
selective
in feigning allegiance
When we are discreetly
anti-Black while blatantly
claiming to be a “person of color”
But maybe we shun bring oppressed
So we ally with whiteness
We drown in whiteness
Ever the Other
We shy away from our black kin
Not seeing our collective humanity
We gaslight their pain
While claiming to be discriminated against
All the while choosing
to drown in whiteness
Denying our pigmentation
Justifying how we do gentrification
We who are overly invested
In being the exceptions
We seek to shine as “model minorities”
We have bought the master’s rules
Claiming we all must pull ourselves up by our
Boot…straps
But we are the master’s fools
With our boots at the throats of
Our Black kin
To climb up the master ladder
And mock with our climb
our brethren that their lives don’t matter
We are complicit in adding insult injury and harm
We, the brown the neither here
Not there
We the Non-Black People of Color
We must shift this tide
Instead of drowning ourselves in whiteness
To obfuscate our pigmentation
We could turn the tide
Someday it won’t be
An either-or
Someday we will all BE
Today we choose
We could step off the throats of Black folks
And kneel bend tend
Deep bows of our backs
Not to the masters as their fools
But deep bows
In solidarity with Black folks
Knowing and living the truths
That any gain we claim
At their expense
Is no gain
Only pain
Pain pain pain
We all fall
We all drown
Could we just know this without a doubt
No lives nor gains nor climbs matter
Unless and until Black Lives Matter.
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