NubianImp Projects

Hmmmm… I find it interesting that the subject causes so many strong feelings on BOTH sides. That there is anger on BOTH sides (POC/non-POC). And that anger seems to be about people saying “I hate this and want it to stop making me feel horrible!” Which is a CLEAR indication to me that EVERYONE suffers from the overt/covert systemic/endemic crap we deal with in North America (my living experience) day in and day out. And a big part of that is that none of us like  generalizations that take away our agency.

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A common language and understanding allow for clear agreements. Memorandums of Understanding. Contracts.

I am a child of Martin Luther Kings Dream, but I am also a child adrift.

Of my genetic heritage, I am similar in physicality/appearance and in legal birth name only. I don’t share the same accent, or vernacular, or dialect. I don’t share a similar sense of place or formative environment. I am not from the same place as my parents, or of our ancestry.

I was birthed and grew up in North America. Canada to be specific. On the western prairies. My sibling and I grew up, in part, in the suburbs and in part on the edge of the city of our birth. Family was parents and my maternal grandmother. The three of them and came from some place else. While we are all from the Americas, they were born in the South while I was born in the North.

My parents were birthed and raised on the same hot continent as each other, but not as me. In the same country. In the same city. I am of the Western Canadian prairies. There was always snow in April for my birthday. They share the same accent, vernacular, and dialect. Culturally, we are not the same.

Opportunity and choice brought them here. Number, distance and circumstance meant that I was raised as a child of THIS continent.

I am not from the same place as my parents or of our ancestry.

I was surrounded by the hetero-sociality of Here.

I feel a responsibility to not let their seed die. However, I end my mother’s matriarchal line. A powerful line. A line I do not know. My father’s line is unknown as well.

A person on a forum I participate in posted the following as part of the ongoing debate about the blog Stuff White People Like:

Let me get this straight … racial slurs against white folks (or more severe actions that would otherwise be considered racist if coming from a white person and directed at a poc) are ethical, maybe even humorous, because systemic oppression based on race doesn’t apply to white folks and thus those words/actions cause no harm. Is that right?

I spit. And then I had to write.

I was having a conversation this weekend with an older, queer, white woman. We were talking about how facing our demons could make us powerful. She used an example of something that is common to women, occasional in it’s occurrence, HORRIFIC without question and not, generally seen or commented on. And I looked at her. Hard. And I realized that the piece she was missing is the ongoing psychic damage of being visible and constantly under attack or looking for the next or defending against the current.

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