A Poem - Andrew Mandell

WC—Stop being white. White is really a state of mind, it’s a social construct. It’s also a psychological disorder as far as I’m concerned. I despise Emma Goldman, who was a flaming eugenicist, racist. And I say that I despise her without in any way discounting the libratory content of her critique relating to class relations and gender relations. As an example of not being white, I’d ask, is David Gilbert really white? He’s phenotypically a white guy, but I don’t know too many people of any ____ group who would lay it on the line like he did. And he’s consistent with it after thirty years in maximum security. He’s absolutely clear in his principles, probably even more so today than the day he went in.

So how do we define white? Melanin in skin? David Duke and the Klan like that definition, but it’s horse shit. Do we define white as class privilege? David Gilbert’s serving the majority of his life in maximum security without renouncing his upper middle class upbringing, so that doesn’t hold up. There is a correlation between white skin and privilege. Clearly his actions were a form of repudiating that privilege. But that doesn’t change a thing in terms of the underlying stereotypes and archetypes. We need a different analytical lens to look at these things which ultimately goes to an understanding of self. So my first statement is really intended seriously. What can you do? Stop being white.

Feel her limbs tremble In a deep place In the brine She is pierced and hemorrhaging the dark spill of our weakness

We continue to show up to work To pay our rents To eat from the bowl on the floor This is the flag of our appalling domestication

Tell me that worms ferry the fires of revolt Tell me mutiny is feigning death and will arise

Wake me with a feral grasp Kiss the sleeping hunger until it is wide and beyond taming

Tell me that the worms ferry the fires of revolt while the orchard arms itself and prepares to take on again the terrible uncontrolled substance of the forest

Let me descend home to primate, to poet, to person Let me burn

- Andrew Mandell