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Privilege and Possibility Stuck like glue to the front of my hands And the side of my tongue In that place where voice falters An endless moment of familiar freeze That stretches for an eternity Or at least seven generations Searching to thaw To reach back and touch The centuries Before power became toxic Before White men Thought the shell beads that Red men wore Could buy land And then stole more than they paid for Before violence Became the foundation of Civilization And Civilization Co-opted Culture for its own gain Before the collision of want with have Before the murdering of chiefs And the shoving of Kings and Queens Into the bowels of Ships To be sold as another’s hands and legs How is it That for more than 500 years We have normalized Forgetting What created The power That the White world Clings to Protects And convinces others To strive for? Why have we normalized And internalized The dependence of Superiority On Inferiority The dependence of power On the less powerful? The reality that Racism needs And feeds Superiority and Power? What if this time Is different? What if this moment Makes a decision To begin telling the story of what happened Until it is known and remembered Written into books Shouted on street corners Where people gather around to listen Adding details Untangling bloodied threads Weaving new storylines Beginning to build bridges Make reparations Take responsibility What if instead of sending in the Feds All force was taken off the table And the way grief turns to violence And violence turns toxic Was stopped? What if the foundations of toxic power Are dismantled And rebuilt from the bottom up Brick by brick Hand by hand Heart to heart? What if White people Loosened their grip And stepped back To follow Instead of lead? What then? What now? Margaret Rosenau July 22, 2020
