On Educating Well-Meaning White People

 

“I give blood to white people”

I give blood.
Every day, to white people, I give blood. Red Blood.

Culturally anemic academics beseech me
to provision them with “my perspective,”
their mouths open like baby birds,
hungry for intellectual exchange
that will move them
from asleep,
to sleepwalking,
to woke.

“Please, please, please; How will I learn if you don’t teach me?”
They chirp.
Underneath that, I can hear:
“Cheap, cheap, cheap: is how much I value your ‘diversity’ work.”

Knowing better, I pull out a blade and slit my wrist for them.
Re-live my historical traumas,
re-justify my traditional knowledge,
re-legitimate my Indigenous existence,
repeat, repeat, repeat.
until I am bled out, emotionally dry.
I collapse.

Success.
Success is a sprint around a track.
I am on the ground at the starting line.
I cannot get up; I can’t run.
My head is cracked
on the starting block.

I give blood to white people.
They run.
I am anemic.
I never cross the finish line.
I am a failure of color.

My failure is added to the Other
failures of color
at the starting line.
Trampled on and left behind
by white success.