What is your superpower, she asked
My superpower is not me and alone and one.
It is us and we.
And, God, maybe eventually,
Them.
Hard conversations. We’re called to hard conversations: bridging the gap between us and “them”, coming together, but not at the expense of marginalized persons, or creation. How do you call out racism, white supremacy, anthropomorphism (i.e., it’s all about us as humans), violence, and on and on – how do you call out those evils and how do we listen to those we label as “Them.”? I’m not terribly good at that yet. This poem, in part, is about that. A call to community that’s not easy.
This poem, in part, is also about painful history and reckoning. If I were to be really honest, I would say parts of this poem are written mostly for white people as we are charged with dealing with a fractured history and country that was built on the backs of enslaved human beings and desecrated and stolen lands. So, if you don’t really want to read what some might call “white fragility” (I don’t think it is) or “white whining” (could be), then feel free to skip this one; I do not intend to make anyone more hurt or weary than they already are. Whoever reads this, though, see where you might find yourself in it.
Ultimately, it is about community, dealing with history, and confession, and building up. Community really is a superpower.
The entire poem is in a PDF document.