Poem: A Letter, A Plea, A Place To Breathe

A Letter, A Plea, A Place To Breathe

A CSUF poet explores race in a time of protest.

STORY: Isaac PHOTO: Gianna Horvath DESIGN: Candace Castillo

Cogs

In the midst of all this, I often wonder where I exist.

Its clear that I cannot exist within the world I once knew, the world that demanded of me labor and life-long servitude, but Im not sure I can call this home either.

Because even though this space is healing and restorative and transformative and liberating.

Though this space is radical and honest and finally voices all that I’ve held in, they don’t let me live here.

I can’t take up home here relax or exist here

I’m forced to work and live up to the work to be seen as the charicature they know

But this was never meant to be a performing act.

This feels all to familiar to what I thought we were dismantling.

And though I’ve grown to resent this place it can’t be worse than the world I once knew.

But if youre reading this, maybe you could tell me why the ivory tower feels as cold as the shackles of the world I once knew.

TU SK

Hey you,

Remember last year when you were going hard for Black Lives Matter?

Remember when we marched in the streets or posted black squares or dedicated our

Instagram stories and Twitter threads to the movement together?

At the very least, do you remember the feeling of shock and disgust you had watching the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd?

Because I do.

And I also remember your promise that this wouldn’t happen again.

The promise that you would do something this time.

You told me that “you were going to learn this time” or “this time you wouldn’t be silent”

You ended your Amazon prime, and supported Black-owned businesses, and put BLM in your bio, and corrected your one racist uncle, and unfollowed those racist friends, and told all of us that you were a committed ally.

And then you stopped.

You see, you may not remember this

Hell, you may not remember me.

I’m simply your conscience

AKA your humanity

AKA a Black student on this campus who watched you do all this.

Like everyone else, I watched you perform this past year and I must say, you gave an admirable performance truly an Oscar-worthy presentation and for a second you almost had me convinced but I’ve seen this act before.

Because it’s a year later almost 500 days since they murdered George Floyd almost 600 days since they murdered Breonna Taylor nearly the same for Ahmaud Arbery but even worse

Its been over 2,000 days since they murdered Sandra Bland

Over 2,600 days since they murdered Eric Garner

Over 3,400 days since they murdered Trayvon Martin

Over 24,000 days since they murdered Emmet Till

Almost 56,000 days since we became citizens

Over 146,000 days since we were first dragged here, enslaved.

All those days, and you gave up.

You realized it wasn’t easy, so you gave up

It wasn’t really convenient, so you gave up

There was no anti-racist ballot box, so you gave up

It required you got creative, so you gave up

It meant you surrendered your privilege, so you gave up

No candidate, booklist, or Twitter thread to spread, so you gave up

You gave up on us

So the next time we come back around to this,

The next time you post BLM or ACAB or want to defund or abolish, the next time you say All Black Lives Matter or show off the Black-owned business you “love”, the next time a Black kid is shot or a Black parent is murdered or a Black elder is beaten the next time they try to lynch us again

Just remember we’ve already been down this road

And this time, your acting better come with an encore Concious

I won’t lie to you the weight of carrying your conscioussness is pretty heavy.

It’s almost as if I can feel all your ignorance. your misconceptions, your misinformation.

It must be angering to know the education system failed you.

To think you spent so much of your life in this system that supplimented education with indoctrination.

And now that you notice, theres this overwhelming urge to almost abandon the pursuit of what might be true in favor of the comfort of what you know to be false your bleached history, your casual racism.

Because the sheer weight of this truth is almost too much to handle.

Don’t worry, I’m well versed in this feeling.

You see, the weight of the world as you’ve learned to see it was lighter, not because the world was simpler but because you never saw all of it.

Your privilege is strong but apparently not strong enough to protect you

Your defensiveness, your guilt from the weight of the world as it truly is.

What’s truly spectacular about this revelation of yours is that some of us have just been living here

So welcome home

I guess.

Although, I must tell you, this isn’t home for you.

You may remember all that talk you gave about “anti-racism” felt kind of nice to say it post it claim it

Guess you never really unpacked it. your resentment, your education

Well now that you’ve joined me here in identifying that the world is bigger than your privilege lets hope you do something about it

Because its important and lives are on the line here hell, my life is on the line here but if nothing else, at least do it because the weight of presence here is to heavy to carry. TU SK