Category: Gun Control

#unraced, #eraced

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A Poem in (the) Twitter Verse*

Racism is not just about white people and non-white people hating. It is about who has “race”.

In the United States, there are “un-raced” bodies and “e-raced” bodies.

E-raced means there’s a social algorithm that makes your color, culture, religion and customs an opaque burden.

Un-raced means your color, culture, religion and customs are invisible and weightless.

If you are un-raced, sometimes you turn around to see racism in the distance, and you hate it.

If you are e-raced, you are the physical location of racism. You see it in the mirror, and you hate it.

If you are un-raced, you hear about shootings and poverty and say “what a shame.”

If you are e-raced, you wonder if you are next, or if someone in your family just died.

Most white people in the United States are un-raced.

Most everyone who is not white in the US is e-raced.

The Bundy family and their accomplices are free because they are un-raced.

The Alt-Right wants to protect the exclusive white privilege of being un-raced.

White liberals who write songs to speak for brown mouths are un-raced.

The Movement for Black Lives is a demand for an end to being e-raced.

Black youths being killed by police or each other are being e-raced.

Black conservatives being thrown out of Republican rallies as thugs are also being e-raced.

Muslim women having their scarves ripped off their heads are being e-raced.

Latino/a/xs being told to speak English are being e-rased.

The tribes protesting at Standing Rock are being e-raced…again.

I have never experienced the United States in an un-raced body.

Every day I wake up to news that reminds me how often and how easily my body is e-raced.

America, seen from inside an e-raced body is a nightmare.

No government or President alone can solve the tragedy of the un-raced vs. the e-raced.

Regardless of how you are “raced”, don’t vote for an ideology…vote to be seen.

The goal is not to be un-raced or e-raced.

The Goal is learning to share what it means to be human-raced.

-ALD

 

*This “poem” originally appeared line-by-line on Twitter

Pulse

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I’m with blogger Anjali Sareen, I’m sick of this shit (see her blog post HERE). I’m tired of writing about death in the US and abroad (see my post on the Paris Attacks).  I’m sick of writing about people’s religiously motivated biases.  I’m sick of writing about terror.  I’m sick of guns.  I’m sick.

So with the killing in Orlando at the Pulse Nightclub, I’m now waiting for someone to make a statement that blames all Muslims for the latest attack.  I’m also waiting for someone to say that gays get what they deserve living their “sinful” lifestyle.  And like Anjali, I’m waiting for us to all too quickly forget and continue with business as usual.

But there’s one thing that we can’t forget or run away from or pray away or extinguish with bullets: the human condition.  Its greatest gift and challenge for us all is the perpetual state of being utterly different than every other human on the planet.  Although we might gang up on each other because of a perceived threat of skin color or idea of the divine or sexual partners, we’re still stuck with the fact that we are in the human soup together.

Folks, we can’t get over being human…so deal with it.

Pulse

When someone’s eyes meet yours
and you know that it is either sex or love
…or both…

When you say the words to your family
and wait for the tears,
shouts,
silence,
embrace…

When you march in the parade
being spat on
and verbally attacked because
“God hates fags!”
still holding your head high…

When you break up with a lover…

These are the pounding beats
of the racing heart
that skip and dance and fight and play
in our veins.
This is life being lived
not a “lifestyle”, choice or sin.
This is a way of being “human”
as old as the planet
that throbs in us all.

No gun,
No religion,
No politics,
No hate,
Will ever stop this
Pulse.

(for all of the kids who just wanted to have a good time last night, the staff and owners of the club and the families and community that is now torn apart.  We…loving, breathing human beings…are with you.)