by Vivek Shraya
rs: the only way to support folks when you have more privilege is to give power away (which means space, money/resources, and time). i run a record label and put on a lot of the shows. when i’m looking at who i should play with or support artistically, i try to give space, resources, and time to gender minorities, queer folks, and/or people of colour.
ad: it’s a bit of an abstract example, however i continually remind myself that getting involved is not about becoming a “good white person.” people of colour are in no way obliged to see or acknowledge any of my humble learning moments or acts of allyship. it’s not about “saving white face” to evade the reality of my own part in perpetuating racism. allyship is gradual, delicate, challenging, and life-long work. the work alone (not the outcomes or accomplishments) has to be and is reason enough.
i agree. the “good white person” is a myth, one that people of colour can’t afford to believe in. especially when we are seldom shown the same kind of generosity applied to our intentions—i am never perceived as a “good brown person” in conversations about racism. if anything, it’s usually the opposite. what is most important and needed is a person who listens and takes action.
the one thing you can do
for yi-fen chou
use your own name
name your colour
over and over
learn its meaning
history advantage
over and over
white is not poison
just your disavowal of it
over and over.
thank you for naming all of your privileges
now what?
bloody mary
white supremacy
white supremacy
white supremacy.
the origins of skin
prologue / gestation
i dreamt i lay on my belly and our creator fascia cut into my lower
back with arms shaped like large copper scissors
sliced along my spine to the top of my head painless
she unwrapped me from my skin her arm blades now blunt
unzipped from this cloak i awaited cold but instead a benevolent
heat the kind i had known in my childhood when we lived on land
together she and i stretched out my skin my flayed fists
pounded it flat her tongue rolled it smooth we examined it
our fingers and eyes anchored on my exterior the physical
map others read to navigate me
borders meridians markings not of my making
who knew hue could be so divisive? she whispered
do you see now? your skin is evil
afflicted we both turned away had to
you appeared when we were not
looking robed yourself in my skin.
you smirked.
she shrugged.
frost formed.
one / birth
would you believe me if I told you the purpose of skin
is not utility but unity?
you had lamented fascia! our planet is wet and cold
so I wove a fabric
especially for you all of you it had to be new unlike any fabric
that had existed before
i wove nothing into something just the motion of my hands weaving
my hands weaving created skin
i had spawned and spun many beautiful creations but human
skin its sensitivity elasticity
made me wish for my own i didn’t know then how complex
an organ skin would become
as it grew skin spread over my knee and descended a
i marvelled then wrapped you in it i wanted you to feel
close to me less alone
so I made your skin the colour of my home the night sky
you were already stars
two / childhood
your word skin derived from your word sky
dark and illimitable
invincible
now that weather couldn’t touch you
as before
wide-eyed
discovering new gifts your planet offered
you cultivated
land
braved the sun learned to swim
touched your bodies
tongue
tug tuck taste trace throat thrust trust
the first
time
you said the word my followed by skin
you felt nearest and furthest from
me.
three / adolescence
before skin
you only looked
at each other
with purest love
raw hands pressed
over your rib
cage in case
your heart tried
to jump out
what was that like?
remember when
last you looked
at something
someone
without attaching
want
but rather
an irrepressible
satisfaction
in their existence?
four / adulthood
with skin came shape no longer amorphous distinction another gift
your curiosity did not last
twisted quickly into contrast
you told yourself new myths of superiority solely based
on your exteriority fabricated
the idea of flaw
said i feel less than and to justify your sense of lack
you cut holes
in your body
as you would later cut holes in your own earth as though
no home can hold you
no home can whole you
let your blood drain out then took the blood of others and took and took
this is how your skin
lost its colour
tragedy of the human body: once given you disembodied
first yourselves then each other
blaming me—for fascia!
maybe skin was a mistake you were better off uncovered astral
maybe bodies are inconsolable
irreconcilable
or maybe you confused desire for deficiency born from touch
my hands weaving it is always touch
embrace that you crave
this is the secret of skin
restoration begins with extending and
the end of taking.
epilogue / decomposition
freedom: the ability to name something bad about yourself
outside yourself
dark
dark past dark secret dark tale dark truth
naming something
dark
affirms what remains of you is light is right is free what happens
when they mark the entirety of you as
dark
that is how they named me there can be no light
for me even when my
dark
body stands naked beneath the midday sun no way to right me no
redemption
no freedom i cannot leave this
darkness
behind like the past hide
it like a secret
darkness
is my tale my truth and this truth of me is always here and so i’m always
the bad about you
outside of you.
brown dreams
i do not believe we will win. i do not believe hope should be a prerequisite for trying anyways.
—alok vaid-menon
call in sick
how many mornings
don’t
count
how many mornings
fresh slate sun rays hope
eclipsed by reminder of your own body
how many mornings
does it storm without storming
do you feel eaten but don’t feel like eating
how many mornings
log in refr
esh dodge comments
scan comments log out restart
how many mornings
tally likes for love wonder what a click tap
from a stranger grants you that you can’t grant
yourself what the lack of a click tap takes
from you that you can’t give yourself
how many mornings
google toronto tallest bridges subway suicides
“only 60 percent who jump die”
how many mornings
you have run out of sick days
when do you run out of being brown?
often brown feels like but
conjunction
1. used to introduce something contrasting with what has already been mentioned
2. used to indicate the impossibility of anything other than what is being stated
3. used to introduce a response expressing a feeling such as surprise or anger
preposition
1. except; apart from; other than
adverb
1. no more than; only
noun
1. an argument against something; an objection.
how to not disappoint you completely
if i write about you is it
appropriation
if i don’t write about you is it
erasure
if i include you is it
tokenizing
if i don’t include you is it
invisibilizing
will you say perpetuating
pandering
centering neoliberal
homonormative
capitalist individualist narcissist
selfish
only interested in being
famous
if i am learning should i
know better
if i err am i
failure
if i list my privileges am i
accountable
if i ask these questions am i
responsible
when i apologize will i be
forgiven.
when i feel jealous
whiteness the meteor that fractured our planet shattered
us apart our memories erased brown fragments unanchored
in white space
this is why every time a brown person sees another brown
person—a double take do i know you? in my dreams
we clutch each other
praise each other desperate to reconnect but when i wake
i am jealous of you how much white people like you
or maybe all this time
i have been aching for you to remember me to remember you
as intimate instead of adversary so how can i love you better?
what i ask myself
when i feel jealous won’t letscarcitycome between
we have already lost so much
when we should be friends.
omar
struck by two the night i saw you first—
your brashness how you danced like your body
was performing an original cover of each song
second—the perma pucker-shape of your lips
searched for you on facebook success
(never more grateful for mutual friends feature)
scrolled your photos studying your poses arms tattoos
i’m-the-shit captions like scripture patch of chest hair
you flaunted deep v necks only reminded me
of my own the one i hid waxed clearing a path
for pimples to bloom
you were a model—of course—but it wasn’t just your beauty
it was your sexy how you knew named owned your fuckability
was this allowed for brown boys? yesterday i forced myself
to watch aziz having sex on master of none listen
to him moan not cringe but absorb
a brown body having giving pleasure
you can’t love anyone until you love yourself
i have found the opposite to be true
you a reflection the brown mirror
i never had a face to look upon
adore when mine was ugly my selfie
pre-selfie
when we met—finally—you confessed
you had posted on tumblr about wanting me
to do something dirty to you
i giggled blushed
you apologized.
under the pink
if i could tunnel back
through time
aggression
dead skin cells
i would guard
all my softness
my tender places
like my life
depended on it
so that when
i grew up
i wouldn’t feel
i had lost
everything.
muscle
pledged my flesh to iron
when soft wasn’t safe
muscle to make masc
masc to make muscle
muscle to mask muffle
firm instead of supple
stubble instead of smooth
in rubble my woman refused
to buckle rumbled stayed subtle
chewed out leather muzzle
i would rather trouble
struggle rather a fist
ten knuckles than cede
one more vessel to men.
agnostic
sometimes
the inconceivable:
i am tender
tensionless
in my body
my gender
photographs
don’t make me
shrink
feel stranger
wish to be a stranger
failure
the word
forgotten
cower
the action
now a strut sway
saunter
is this just because
in my bed
there is
a white man?
the first time
we kissed
my nose bled
and the second.
skeptic
once i loved a brown woman
you said i hated myself
now i also love a white man
you say i hate myself.
vishvarupa
you will never grasp
clasp my power
voltage to resist persist coexist
shapeshift conductor for your spark
my skin is brown
to caution you of my fire.
how many books have to be written?
two hundred thousand years
of human life
fire flight language music wheel
architecture vaccine electricity
one five ten fifteen twenty years
from now another brown person
stares at white screen glare
types the word race
five billion years
until the sun dies.
brown dreams
how often must you prove your pigment
when your entire body is painted bronze
have you ever heard white question its colour
snow moon salt milk tooth chalk
what if there is no right way to be brown
besides the brown you are
soil nut clove wheat bark pluto.
author’s note
as a non-black person of colour writing a book about racism, i felt it necessary to acknowledge anti-black racism. my hope is that this comes through in this book.