Here be dragons.

Some folks are impressed with how articulate we are —- until we start fixing our mouths to hold them accountable for something. They like our ‘fierceness’ and our ‘strength’ until we switch to a code that they aren’t so fluent in. Then it’s not so nice, right? Then they want to tell us that our style of speech discredits our message; they remind us that we’re expected to speak their language and make all of our content suited to their tastes - on their schedule.

Our white sisters
radical friends
should think
again.

Some folks are angry because they feel we have rejected them from our online communities and made certain spaces ‘uncomfortable’ for them’; they’re mad because they feel entitled —- to every space. Until the venom turns on them, they want to believe that it’s a free country and they can share their opinions anywhere and anytime because of free speech. They don’t concern themselves with whether or not they should. They don’t need to.

Our white sisters
radical friends
should think
again.

I was reading This Bridge Called My Back over the weekend and I started to think about how much has changed since the project was launched in the late 1970s. Our advancements and our setbacks and how some things just haven’t changed at all:

And when our white sisters
radical friends see us
in the flesh
not as a picture they own,
they are not quite sure
if
they like us as much.
We’re not as happy as we look
on
their
wall.

Poetry Excerpts: Jo Carrillo’s “And When You Leave, Take Your Pictures With You,” published in This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, 2nd ed., 1983.