WAC Clearinghouse | Across the Disciplines | Special Issue: Anti-Racist Activism | Review Main Page

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A Response to the New Racism (a poem)

by Moira Ozias

Hospitality
Closed off, run down, told off
by power, whiteness, and
the deafening silence
of
Proper
Polite
Policing.

Give me back my writing places
where talk runs wild
unpredictable
where people hurt and heal
where scars are visible reminders of learning
where embarrassment and shame
fizzle
drizzle
putter out
because people take courage together
and name the awful.

Give me back my writing places
Big spaces
Room enough for upset
Time enough for untangling the knots of angry hurting disappointing raging
sad grief
where blues are sung
and honky tonks twang
and rez voices echo around
mixing
mingling
mashed up
sampled
our long-view mixtape.

And white people listen.

We will not be held hostage
by blind silent politeness
on the red dirt land
under the raging sun.

We've been there
dying a little inside
shriveling up
shrinking
sinking
'till we're gone.
And the exoskeleton, proper and undisturbing, remains.

Give us back our writing places
Big sky
Red dirt
Mean streets
and all
so that we can strike out toward each other
in the big, long space of now
Calling
Responding
Naming
Writing
Words on pages
Rhymes on records
Being heard to each other.

Give us back our writing places.

• "Going There": A Conversation Between Consultants
• Writing as a Vehicle for Learning & Activism
• On Family and Abuse
• A Response to the New Racism (poem)
• Author Profiles

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