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One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
By Lucia Misch
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The American discussion on race often focuses on the oppression of people of color, and issues of white guilt (and responsibility) are ignored. In her poetry, Youth Radio's Lucia Misch delves into a personal reflection on experiences with depression and white privilege.
One, two, buckle my shoe,
Middle class white girl, you’ve got the blues?
This ought to be good, let’s hear your excuse.
It was so hard this morning to buckle my shoes,
Watch the news, try to ignore the obvious truth –
I’m the color of the overpaid news anchors’ asses,
NOT the color of the huddled masses.
Cause jeans are as ethnic as I’m going to get
And I’ve traded religion for the rhyming couplet
And all that my skin color left me for legacy
Is a cultural guilt shared by those the same shade as me.
Sure I can cling to Jewishness and my family,
March in marches and write angry political poetry,
Die my hair black as black as ebony,
Try hard as I can to make someone oppress me.
But the truth is I’m white as the paper I write on
Which I’m sure came from some brown peoples’ trees in the Amazon.
I’ve got more than I need: a two-parent home, a sister who loves me, food in the fridge,
No worries about money, steep weekly therapy – I can say anything I want to say
And there’s a check in the box next to Caucasian.
So where does depression fit in this equation – this totally oppression-free equation?
Yeah, where does it fit among all of the white-bread
Catholic school, organic-fed
Easy renewal left unsaid
Colonial rule repentance ed. s—t
Where does it fit?
Oh sure, she’s a rebel (dramatic pause)
Refusing the Prozac to further the cause
But isn’t it nice that the insurance ensures that the choice is fully and utterly hers?
The lady did say without them the grey would stay today and every day –
Every Monday through Sunday cause the drug companies well they like it that way.
I must say it scares me utterly s—tless, my absentee god is my AWOL witness
That it may be all true and I’ll be in this mess
Until I confess that I’m self-oppressed
That my head is a nest of writhing unrest
Not helped by the stress of my own whiteness.
One, two, buckle my shoe
Three, four, out the door
Out to your Astroturf smile galore
Out past the wealth that you hate and adore?
Three, four, and I’m out that damn door.
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