I Never Stood
I never lived in Africa.
I never led a tribe.
I never poached a man and sold him to a trader.
I never owned a plantation.
I never wore a hood.
I never dragged a negro out of bed with a flashlight and a shotgun.
I don’t care if you sit in the front.
I don’t care if you vote.
I don’t care where you eat, drink, live, learn, shop,
or how you pray.
Never in my life did I spit at anyone,
refuse them service,
or call them nigger.
I never thought you were less.
I never thought you were more.
I never thought I knew Your Kind.
I don’t laugh at the jokes.
I don’t cross the street.
I don’t lower my voice when I say Black,
and I am not afraid of Strong Black Women.
I never kept you from wanting more.
I never told you to take less.
I never stopped you from going to work.
I didn’t give up your virginity when you were twelve.
I didn’t drop you out of school.
I didn’t shoot your father,
beat your mother,
shake your baby,
or pimp your sister.
I never jabbed a needle in your arm.
I’m a Cracker bitch because I don’t give you a hand up?
Sister, I never stood on your fingers.
Sally Bacchetta 2005
30 Comments:
I love your poetry. I run an online artist community. I just started a blog for it and would love to exchange links with you.
My blog url is http://artgally.blogspot.com
my email is artgall@artgally.com
I am going to put a link on my blog to your site. If you have another website also I would like to have the link to that. Please email them to me.
I am very interested in artists of all venues. I have a lot of poets on my artgally domain. You can view it by going to http://www.artgally.com
Thanks so much
Sandy
I love it. Somewhat like the Buddha style. Check it out if have times
I normally don't read poetry but something about this one caught my attention.
Most of us thought we should preface each line with "I'm sorry we..."
Thanks for setting us straight about our guilt.
god bless.
As an Asian American female adoptee who was raised in a Caucasian family and is now engaged to an African American man, and more importantly as a member of the human race, I find this poem extremely offensive and disgusting.
You are part of the reason that racism is still a part of our society even decades after the end of segregation. Your “poem” (and I use that term extremely loosely) is filled with stereotypes built by priveleged people who have never had to deal with someone treating them differently because of the color of their skin. I am completely disgusted by this and think it is ridiculous you can’t see your own hypocrisy.
You are so uneducated, so intolerant, and such an ignorant racist. I cannot believe this crap. I cannot, cannot believe this.
As a biracial female this is innapropriate. I never asked you for a hand up when I got my college degree, working two jobs to put myself through school. Please think about using the n word because it is not your word,it is not a word that needs to be used by anyone. Ive never stuck a needle in my arm, Ive never been on welfare or any of the other stereotypes you have so disgustingly thrown out there. Please think about it, "sister" it's is great to be proud of your roots, but you are stepping on toes when you put another race down and that is exactly what you have done here. I'll give you the benifit of the doubt that you didn't mean any malice, but that is exactly what comes across: prejudice.
I cannot believe that in 2009 someone would actually write a "poem" like the one you wrote. It's disgusting and alarming.
queenofdenial - You certainly are. You made your comments with no knowledge of my family's racial or ethnic mix, nor that of my husband, his family, or our children's. By making your comments without any knowledge of how my family or I have been treated because of the various colors of our skin, and no knowledge of our socie-economic or educational status, it is you who is being racist.
So Sally, in your world, it's okay to use the "N" word and NOT be called racist?
consolidatingcricket,
"Never in my life did I spit at anyone,
refuse them service,
or call them nigger."
If you read that as supporting the use of the word 'nigger', you misunderstand the poem entirely.
To me, even using the word is offensive.
Dear author,
White privilege exists. Every day you benefit from it. This means there are fingers under your foot despite the fact that you never intended to step on them.
Good intentions are a fine place to start a conversation about race but an unacceptable place to end one. I hope these comments will spur you to educate yourself rather than just being defensive because people who have never met you seem so angry.
Laurel
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