For a poetry reading some weeks ago someone read the poem “Black Privilege” by Crystal Valentine. This poem examines some of the things black people have been forced to do over time and calling it “black privilege” as a mockery of non-black people who claim such thing exists.
In the poem she says “Black privilege is being so unique that not even God will look like you.” She says not even God will look like you. Not that he just happens to not look like you, but that he won’t. It shows that to be black is so undesirable that not even God, who is said to have created people in his image, would be willing to look like you. And while this is a perfectly legitimate thing for a black woman to say who has spent all of her life being told that black isn’t beautiful, that black isn’t right. For her to express frustration in the fact that people say over and over again that white is holy and black isn’t is totally reasonable and justified. But what does it mean for a person who isn’t black to read this poem and talk about these things to a room full of a majority non-black people?
What does it mean when the author of the poem writes “And it’s tirin’, you know? For everything about my skin to be a metaphor, for everything Black to be pun intended, to be death intended,” and then we sit for the rest of the fifteen minutes trying to make metaphors from her blackness and trying to find death in her words?
What does it mean for her to say “Black privilege is having to have the same sense of humor as Jesus. Remember how he smiled on the cross? The same way Malcolm X laughed at his bullet,” as we go on and find humor in Invisible Man and find jokes in the poems we read?
How is it fair for us to take her experience and her suffering and pick it apart to search for enough symbolism to satisfy us? How is it fair to call someone a pale poet if we aren’t satisfied?
Wow that was intense. I agree that the makeup of the class in terms of race, combined with the nature of the course lead to awkward and possibly offensive moments where we talk about and try to analyze things we have no firsthand experience dealing with. I understand that your post was directed at voicing your frustration at this fact, but you also didn't really add anything besides just raising this point of concern. Maybe add something that could be changed? However, this post is still really good, and I can feel the emotion you put into it.
ReplyDeleteDo you argue against 'picking poems apart'? Do you think that we should disregard the 'metaphors of her blackness'? To fail to even attempt to grasp the complex concepts that are condensed in poetry would be insulting to the artist, and to fail to discuss the poetry would be defeat its purpose. Then what should we do?
ReplyDeleteWith a slam poem like that performed in front of the class, where the meaning is powerful and in everyone's face, I was also surprised at how sidetracked we got talking about some random symbolism. In retrospect, that was pretty harmful to the goal of the poem and what we try to do in poetry readings. Not to mention when white students start arguing about something else entirely and take up valuable discussion time, filling it with some discrepancy of another's comment. There is an extra obligation, not only to have ideas but to understand that in limited class time, poems with pertinent messages should garner comments that are on topic. You raise a really interesting point of discussion and criticism.
ReplyDeleteI'm not in your class, so I looked up this poem and I found it really interesting and powerful. I like that it forced me to step back and look at how privileged I am as a white person. I already know that I have privilege, but it hasn't been something that I have to think about a lot. My race (as in me having white skin) is almost "passive" in a way because I don't have to constantly think about if I'm considered too threatening if I wear a hoodie or if what I do reflects badly on white people as a whole.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really well-written and thought-provoking post. I feel like that poem was probably one of the most striking poems we've read so far, and it seemed like by the time the 15 minutes were over we had barely discussed any of its real significance. I definitely agree with what you say about how every time there's a poem, someone asks "is this pale poetry?" and it seems that sometimes we end up arguing about things that don't really matter. I don't know what the best solution is, and maybe there isn't any perfect solution that will make everyone happy while still preserving the spirit of poetry readings, but you raise a lot of important and interesting points that hopefully more people will consider in the future.
ReplyDeleteI liked this post a lot. Im in the other section so I wasn't present for this poem discussion, but I still really liked what you had to say about it. You bring up a very interesting point about basically making jokes in the face of really harsh issues like racism. Although I definitely agree that this is a bit absurd, I'm also reminded at how so many people deal with grief and suffering with humor. I think It's especially odd thinking of white people laughing "along" with racism, but I can understand the use of humor even with something like racism.
ReplyDeleteI definitely get what you mean about people using humor to deal with difficult situations but like you said, it definitely rubs me the wrong way when people who don't experience that type of racism laugh about that type of racism.
DeleteImpressive post. I think the very nature of touchy-subjects makes it hard for people that are so far removed to indulge in those discussions. I think it's a natural tendency to laugh in uncomfortable situations--to poke fun at things or focus on subjects of less gravity--and avoid speaking about the elephant in the room. It's disappointing, but those that can maturely converse about these ideas possess a valuable skill.
ReplyDeleteYou final point about "pale poetry", this idea that a reader can feel unsatisfied by the lack of gruesome detail or reality in a piece of work, has also been internally bugging me over the past few weeks. Why can't we simply regard works of literature as they're supposed to be regarded: as literature? Who's to say that the validity of a poem hinges on how directly it refers to the issues it pertains to? Should this critique even be a legitimate one? Why can't we just let poets express their thoughts however they deem necessary?
Responding to yet another point, I appreciate your dissatisfaction with the sidetracked discussion. Often times, especially with figurative literature or overly poetic phrasing, it's easy to get bogged down in the details. Reading a passage, it's easy to be confused as to which words are truly intentional or have dual significance, and which were simply employed for logistical purposes--as filler to complete the sentence. Often times I've seen the critique of even discussing poetry in the first place, with some claiming that one's own personal interpretation is all that is needed, and that external views can inadvertently sway one away from what the poem truly means to them. I can even recall frequent complaints about this type of discussion in some previous English classes here at uni, with fellow classmates finding frustration in a teacher's dwelling on seemingly minute details, rather than the overarching messages.
Nice post dude.
What really struck me about this powerful poem, which I wish we'd gotten into during the discussion, is the way the poet/speaker herself turns the attention on her own poem, and her own tendency to use (exploit?) politics, "using a dead boy's name" in order to "win a poetry slam." As a slam/performance poem, this stuff must have a powerful effect when delivered live in front of an audience ("Black privilege is the applause at the end of this poem, is me giving you a dead boy's body and you giving me a ten, is me being okay with that"), implicating the audience and the poet in what may be seen as a self-indulgent, conscience-assuaging exercise. Among many other things, this poem is "about" political or protest poetry in the same way "To the Pale Poets" is, but even more self-reflexively. Even as the poem is confronting its audience with a challenging set of perspective-altering lines about "black privilege" (which are also about white privilege), it calls into question some of the very issues you raise here, about who may speak for whom, and what value poetry has in the face of life-and-death racism and violence.
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