even this page is white Read online

  rs: the only way to support folks when you have more privilege is to give power away (which means space, money/resources, and time). i run a record label and put on a lot of the shows. when i’m looking at who i should play with or support artistically, i try to give space, resources, and time to gender minorities, queer folks, and/or people of colour.

  ad: it’s a bit of an abstract example, however i continually remind myself that getting involved is not about becoming a “good white person.” people of colour are in no way obliged to see or acknowledge any of my humble learning moments or acts of allyship. it’s not about “saving white face” to evade the reality of my own part in perpetuating racism. allyship is gradual, delicate, challenging, and life-long work. the work alone (not the outcomes or accomplishments) has to be and is reason enough.

  i agree. the “good white person” is a myth, one that people of colour can’t afford to believe in. especially when we are seldom shown the same kind of generosity applied to our intentions—i am never perceived as a “good brown person” in conversations about racism. if anything, it’s usually the opposite. what is most important and needed is a person who listens and takes action.

  the one thing you can do

  for yi-fen chou

  use your own name

  name your colour

  over and over

  learn its meaning

  history advantage

  over and over

  white is not poison

  just your disavowal of it

  over and over.

  thank you for naming all of your privileges

  now what?

  bloody mary

  white supremacy

  white supremacy

  white supremacy.

  the origins of skin

  prologue / gestation

  i dreamt i lay on my belly and our creator fascia cut into my lower

  back with arms shaped like large copper scissors

  sliced along my spine to the top of my head painless

  she unwrapped me from my skin her arm blades now blunt

  unzipped from this cloak i awaited cold but instead a benevolent

  heat the kind i had known in my childhood when we lived on land

  together she and i stretched out my skin my flayed fists

  pounded it flat her tongue rolled it smooth we examined it

  our fingers and eyes anchored on my exterior the physical

  map others read to navigate me

  borders meridians markings not of my making

  who knew hue could be so divisive? she whispered

  do you see now? your skin is evil

  afflicted we both turned away had to

  you appeared when we were not

  looking robed yourself in my skin.

  you smirked.

  she shrugged.

  frost formed.

  one / birth

  would you believe me if I told you the purpose of skin

  is not utility but unity?

  you had lamented fascia! our planet is wet and cold

  so I wove a fabric

  especially for you all of you it had to be new unlike any fabric

  that had existed before

  i wove nothing into something just the motion of my hands weaving

  my hands weaving created skin

  i had spawned and spun many beautiful creations but human

  skin its sensitivity elasticity

  made me wish for my own i didn’t know then how complex

  an organ skin would become

  as it grew skin spread over my knee and descended a

  i marvelled then wrapped you in it i wanted you to feel

  close to me less alone

  so I made your skin the colour of my home the night sky

  you were already stars

  two / childhood

  your word skin derived from your word sky

  dark and illimitable

  invincible

  now that weather couldn’t touch you

  as before

  wide-eyed

  discovering new gifts your planet offered

  you cultivated

  land

  braved the sun learned to swim

  touched your bodies

  tongue

  tug tuck taste trace throat thrust trust

  the first

  time

  you said the word my followed by skin

  you felt nearest and furthest from

  me.

  three / adolescence

  before skin

  you only looked

  at each other

  with purest love

  raw hands pressed

  over your rib

  cage in case

  your heart tried

  to jump out

  what was that like?

  remember when

  last you looked

  at something

  someone

  without attaching

  want

  but rather

  an irrepressible

  satisfaction

  in their existence?

  four / adulthood

  with skin came shape no longer amorphous distinction another gift

  your curiosity did not last

  twisted quickly into contrast

  you told yourself new myths of superiority solely based

  on your exteriority fabricated

  the idea of flaw

  said i feel less than and to justify your sense of lack

  you cut holes

  in your body

  as you would later cut holes in your own earth as though

  no home can hold you

  no home can whole you

  let your blood drain out then took the blood of others and took and took

  this is how your skin

  lost its colour

  tragedy of the human body: once given you disembodied

  first yourselves then each other

  blaming me—for fascia!

  maybe skin was a mistake you were better off uncovered astral

  maybe bodies are inconsolable

  irreconcilable

  or maybe you confused desire for deficiency born from touch

  my hands weaving it is always touch

  embrace that you crave

  this is the secret of skin

  restoration begins with extending and

  the end of taking.

  epilogue / decomposition

  freedom: the ability to name something bad about yourself

  outside yourself

  dark

  dark past dark secret dark tale dark truth

  naming something

  dark

  affirms what remains of you is light is right is free what happens

  when they mark the entirety of you as

  dark

  that is how they named me there can be no light

  for me even when my

  dark

  body stands naked beneath the midday sun no way to right me no

  redemption

  no freedom i cannot leave this

  darkness

  behind like the past hide

  it like a secret

  darkness

  is my tale my truth and this truth of me is always here and so i’m always

  the bad about you

  outside of you.

  brown dreams

  i do not believe we will win. i do not believe hope should be a prerequisite for trying anyways.

  —alok vaid-menon

  call in sick

  how many mornings

  don’t

  count

  how many mornings

  fresh slate sun rays hope

  eclipsed by reminder of your own body

  how many mornings

  does it storm without storming

  do you feel eaten but don’t feel like eating

  how many mornings

  log in refr
esh dodge comments

  scan comments log out restart

  how many mornings

  tally likes for love wonder what a click tap

  from a stranger grants you that you can’t grant

  yourself what the lack of a click tap takes

  from you that you can’t give yourself

  how many mornings

  google toronto tallest bridges subway suicides

  “only 60 percent who jump die”

  how many mornings

  you have run out of sick days

  when do you run out of being brown?

  often brown feels like but

  conjunction

  1. used to introduce something contrasting with what has already been mentioned

  2. used to indicate the impossibility of anything other than what is being stated

  3. used to introduce a response expressing a feeling such as surprise or anger

  preposition

  1. except; apart from; other than

  adverb

  1. no more than; only

  noun

  1. an argument against something; an objection.

  how to not disappoint you completely

  if i write about you is it

  appropriation

  if i don’t write about you is it

  erasure

  if i include you is it

  tokenizing

  if i don’t include you is it

  invisibilizing

  will you say perpetuating

  pandering

  centering neoliberal

  homonormative

  capitalist individualist narcissist

  selfish

  only interested in being

  famous

  if i am learning should i

  know better

  if i err am i

  failure

  if i list my privileges am i

  accountable

  if i ask these questions am i

  responsible

  when i apologize will i be

  forgiven.

  when i feel jealous

  whiteness the meteor that fractured our planet shattered

  us apart our memories erased brown fragments unanchored

  in white space

  this is why every time a brown person sees another brown

  person—a double take do i know you? in my dreams

  we clutch each other

  praise each other desperate to reconnect but when i wake

  i am jealous of you how much white people like you

  or maybe all this time

  i have been aching for you to remember me to remember you

  as intimate instead of adversary so how can i love you better?

  what i ask myself

  when i feel jealous won’t letscarcitycome between

  we have already lost so much

  when we should be friends.

  omar

  struck by two the night i saw you first—

  your brashness how you danced like your body

  was performing an original cover of each song

  second—the perma pucker-shape of your lips

  searched for you on facebook success

  (never more grateful for mutual friends feature)

  scrolled your photos studying your poses arms tattoos

  i’m-the-shit captions like scripture patch of chest hair

  you flaunted deep v necks only reminded me

  of my own the one i hid waxed clearing a path

  for pimples to bloom

  you were a model—of course—but it wasn’t just your beauty

  it was your sexy how you knew named owned your fuckability

  was this allowed for brown boys? yesterday i forced myself

  to watch aziz having sex on master of none listen

  to him moan not cringe but absorb

  a brown body having giving pleasure

  you can’t love anyone until you love yourself

  i have found the opposite to be true

  you a reflection the brown mirror

  i never had a face to look upon

  adore when mine was ugly my selfie

  pre-selfie

  when we met—finally—you confessed

  you had posted on tumblr about wanting me

  to do something dirty to you

  i giggled blushed

  you apologized.

  under the pink

  if i could tunnel back

  through time

  aggression

  dead skin cells

  i would guard

  all my softness

  my tender places

  like my life

  depended on it

  so that when

  i grew up

  i wouldn’t feel

  i had lost

  everything.

  muscle

  pledged my flesh to iron

  when soft wasn’t safe

  muscle to make masc

  masc to make muscle

  muscle to mask muffle

  firm instead of supple

  stubble instead of smooth

  in rubble my woman refused

  to buckle rumbled stayed subtle

  chewed out leather muzzle

  i would rather trouble

  struggle rather a fist

  ten knuckles than cede

  one more vessel to men.

  agnostic

  sometimes

  the inconceivable:

  i am tender

  tensionless

  in my body

  my gender

  photographs

  don’t make me

  shrink

  feel stranger

  wish to be a stranger

  failure

  the word

  forgotten

  cower

  the action

  now a strut sway

  saunter

  is this just because

  in my bed

  there is

  a white man?

  the first time

  we kissed

  my nose bled

  and the second.

  skeptic

  once i loved a brown woman

  you said i hated myself

  now i also love a white man

  you say i hate myself.

  vishvarupa

  you will never grasp

  clasp my power

  voltage to resist persist coexist

  shapeshift conductor for your spark

  my skin is brown

  to caution you of my fire.

  how many books have to be written?

  two hundred thousand years

  of human life

  fire flight language music wheel

  architecture vaccine electricity

  one five ten fifteen twenty years

  from now another brown person

  stares at white screen glare

  types the word race

  five billion years

  until the sun dies.

  brown dreams

  how often must you prove your pigment

  when your entire body is painted bronze

  have you ever heard white question its colour

  snow moon salt milk tooth chalk

  what if there is no right way to be brown

  besides the brown you are

  soil nut clove wheat bark pluto.

  author’s note

  as a non-black person of colour writing a book about racism, i felt it necessary to acknowledge anti-black racism. my hope is that this comes through in this book.