Be Very Afraid of Old White Men

Be very afraid of old white men,

they've achieved much on the bones of others.

They know the hows and when,

to make widows of wives, and nestless mothers.

Be very afraid of old white men,

they've bought the land with money they stole,

careless again and again,

stealing gold, diamond, and coal.

Be very afraid of old white men,

with chains that still make slaves:

shackled the skin of colour, and then,

dance upon their graves.

-o0o-

To Heal with Hate

You that peddle flesh as freight!

Filleted, sliced, and stuffed with hate!

Will corpses rise and live again?

Bewitched by bigotry and "amen"?

Are wounds healed and bones unbroken,

by skin that's white or polished token?

Are children saved from evil here,

by invoking evil there?

-shanked off the rotisserie spear

to be otherwise laid bare?

You can't invoke your children's blood,
to justify your acts of hate.
You can't use their ashes to justify,
your white supremacist state.
You are the violent hand that cuts,
the whips that beat, the clubs that break.
You can't invoke your violence here,
and say it was for your children's sake.
You drove the wheel that brought us here.
You fanned the flames that stoke a war.
What battle could you possibly wage,
to raise such "peace" that you fight for?

-o0o-

CW: Rape of children, Racism

This was inspired by this hateful blog written by some racist moron using the bodies of raped children to justify her racism:

and my response:

A year ago...

Sandra Bland died today

but long ago

the hurt is still in the faces of her siblings

the wound is still so raw

and her siblings die

her parents die

still

now

like it digs up old graves
and she's here again

as if she died yesterday

-o0o-

Chivalry

"for women" is the reason men fought their wars?

            like jackets on mud puddles and opening doors

              men laid us out like carcasses on floors

gutted us and killed us

                     and pretended that they were the victims

          because our deaths weren't as honourable

men did none of this "for women"           

we, the un-man, were the acted upon                  

the field that was tilled                                               

the price that was billed                                         

the hysteria pilled                    

the drink swilled

we were never people                                                     

we were your objects                                                          

your things                                                                                 

                                    the good women cloistered and brided off

                  the bad women, queers, people of colour

fucked, raped, abandoned, and killed   

"for us"?

No...

                                                         you did "for us" what bankers do for money

                          "for us" what robbers do for gold

                      "for us" what the colonist did for land

"for us" what the christian did for souls

this was never about us                                      

and of course              

  of course

            of course

you say that you did it "for us"                                        

we should be grateful                                          

at least someone was thinking about us   

how nice...                                 

                             gobble us up all sugar and spice

                     because we'd be wise to play along

                in a game where we're the ball to be kicked around

men faught wars "for us"?                                                  

go fuck yourself

                                      don't put your blood on my hand

                        use my body as a crutch so you can stand

like the slaver who did it all for the slave's own good                          

                                                      (and of course the land)

         it's the one great thing that I wish you'd understand

the one thing i wish you'd get into your head                                       

damned right, I wish that chivalry was dead                       

-o0o-

Fuck your "Free Speech"

You have a right to speak,
do it, please.
Run your face like a tap sprung a leak,
but you do not have a right to be heard.
Don’t bring your hate to my party,
with teeth that tear,
stuffing your opinon in my underwear
when I dance,
and call me your stripper.
Your hate is not free.
My life is not your platform.
Freedom of speech does not exist,
because speech isn’t free.
It costs marginalized people the most,
and the most dearly.
And they are silenced,
and beaten up,
and killed,
and forgotten.
A cost you will never understand.
While you:
…white boy
…cis boy
…straight boy
Lecture us about “free speech”!
Stepping up on your privilege,
with your cock hardening,
like shitting on our doorsteps,
and calling it gardening.

-o0o-

Gaytopia

thin pinkwashed veneer

around a well oiled machine

a punching press for

perfect

muscular

cisgender

white

Ken dolls

proudly rainbow

while the brown queer trans girl bleeds

a thin coat

to weather this one storm

this one time it won't last

and even your little gaytopia will fail

because having bought into that

the very system that hates you

you've set the stage for your own undoing

you've bought yourselves mansions

with borrowed currency

covered in the blood of we you claim to represent

and now the money is spent

where are you?

tucked away behind champaign and wedding cake

isn't it great?

it got better did it?

funny

we were promised that too

-o0o-

Selective Grief

set the clocks west

the new daylight savings

where red, white, and blue 

become the new whiteface

since lions draw more tears 

than the corpse of a black child

and Beirut is an abandoned building

a haunted house forgotten 

and left barren

while Paris is wined and dined

having turned our eyes to the bells that chimed

and set the clocks westward

ticking the eyes away from marginalized bodies

neocolonial violence in the name of selective grief

and the grief we've carefully chosen

is male, tick

is cisgender, tick

is white, tick

when clocks chime of gay marriage and wedding cake

another transgender corpse is a sponge

soaked with the soap of blood and forget

the body count of neglect

but we're 'celebrated' in retrospect

when we're dead

and our voices gone

and our flailing arms still

and our corpse-like-sponges 

are used to wash the streets

and sweep the detritus away

we hear the battle cry

"all lives matter"

really?

if that were true

we'd expect to see Facebook safety checks 

for every city

we'd expect a candle lit for
every transbody, tock

every brown body, tock

every woman's body, tock
but no
we're

mashed in the cogs of your eurocentric clocks

your patriarchal timepieces

but no

we've learned that "all lives" do not matter

Paris is a good example of that

mass outrage and grief for the European city

wailing and gnashing of teeth for white bodies

and today I watch a white man explain to a black woman

why Beirut deserved what happened to them

because brown bodies do not matter

and what a paltry sacrifice a brown body is

if the world is to be rid of Islam

so his Islamophobia teaches that

brown lives do not matter

and as time drags itself

up the hill of marginalized corpses

so a white man can pin his grief to the summit
where he can build his belltower

and sing to the chimes

of what a fucking victim he is

-o0o-

Appropriation

colour, a commodity 

packaged in beads and thread

strip the black children naked 

leave brown kids for dead

eat up their culture 

sweep up their ash

nothing gets in the way 

of the white folks' cash

-o0o-

All Lives Matter?

You know, playing at semantics is always fun,
   when marginalized people are being killed en mass.
But Little Lord Privilege over here feels 'left out'.
   Boo hoo.
Did marginalized people speaking about their suffering upset you?
   Did people who are being slaughtered daily make you feel uncomfortable?
It would be so much easier if they just suffered in silence, wouldn't it?
   Then you wouldn't have to be reminded of how fucking lucky you are.
When marginalized people say they suffer,
   and you as a privileged person say, "I suffer too."
Do you know what that sounds like?
   You got all the cookies,
   and a starving person wants one cookie,
   and you scream, "I deserve a cookie too!"
   Do you know what you sound like?
Do you know what it's like to be queer in this day and age?
   Where the life expectancy of a transgender person is 40 years?
Do you know what it's like to be a queer person of colour?
   Where the life expectancy can be as low as 25 years?
When they say, "Our Lives Matter!"
   When they cry out because of the abuse they suffer.
And you waltz through declaring "All Lives Matter!"
   Well done.
Well done you selfish arsehole.
   Here. Let me clap for you... slowly.
I'm reminded of the cartoon of the fireman,
   watering a house next to a house on fire.
   "All Houses Matter."

Do me a favour.
   Instead of lecturing me about how "All Lives Matter"
   How about you take your entitled privileged ass,
   and go tell some racists, homophobes, transphobes, and misogynists,
   that all lives matter, EVEN OURS.

And stop pretending as if marginalized people are the ones being dishonest and divisive.

#BlackLivesMatter
#TransLivesMatter
#LGBTQIALivesMatter
#WomensLivesMatter

-o0o-

Riot

if you are more concerned
with property destroyed
than lives lost to abuse:
then you are the problem

if riots irk you more
than things they represent
more than those children killed:
then you are the problem

if you spend more time on
vindicating whiteness
than challenging black death:
then you are the problem

if you spend more time on
defending your straightness
than challenging queer death:
then you are the problem

your personal comfort
is not worth more than lives
the lives killed by your kind:
since you are the problem

when you bought into that
you, holier than thou
a 'pure- hearted' bigot:
you became the problem

if you think that riots
are so unbecoming
but you don't dare ask why:
you're the fucking problem

you have no right calling
yourself a liberal
you are not progressive:
you're the fucking problem

you don't care about them
the people who suffer
the people who have died:
you're the fucking problem

-o0o-

This Land is Your Land

this land is your land?
it's weird you say that
you came with loud guns
you came with bright flags

you colonized them
and then you claimed that
this land was always made for you

you built your houses
on native gravestones
and on their temples
you build payphones

pretend their gone now
that you are destined
that this land was always made for you

went from Apartheid
to segregation
you painted this
your rainbow nation

and now you stand there
with all you stole, saying
this land was always made for you

your hateful heroes
put up in marble
your white guilt
a whispered garble

and now you pretend
it's not related
this land was always made for you

your racist systems
you now defend them
with guns and flags
you swore were not yours

and now you yell
from every plaza
this land was always made for you

and you've got houses
blood money pay checks
built on the sweat of
black broken bare backs

and you're just descended
you never did that
this land was always made for you

-o0o-

The KKK isn't a hate-group anymore?

As the beast puts silken drapes about its maw,
and fancy rings on every claw.
That knife-like smile stretching ear to ear,
beckoning the gullible to draw near.

-o0o-

When what we really deserved...

We are the architects of time
And so the oligarchs of fate
We wrote the edict and the crime
We wrought the guillotine and state
Not fully risen from the slime
We had our fellows on our plate
Longpig on sale for half a dime
Sold, steaming, slice-for-slice, by weight

We privileged few
Of course we knew
And still we do
Again, anew

We silvertongued sires
  Slave owning buyers
    Witch burning fires
      Gay hating liars

When then the clock struck out our chime
They came then knocking at our gate
Instead of planting us in lime
They offered love instead of hate

-o0o-

White Lies

there is something so sinister in that nostalgia
that keeps the villain alive
that thing that skulks like a frog under a rock
something of the stately old white man
baas op sy plaas
sitting in his rocking chair
he messages his culpability into the oxen shit veranda
that was polished  dusky red
by the blood of the old cleaning woman

can you see him stuff his pipe?
with the leathery skin of the old field worker
preening in his white shirt bleached
with the crushed bones of the washer woman

indignant
he denies it all
as he puffs and blows out their last breaths

"I'm not to blame"
he snaps

"it's all over now"
he gesticulates

"besides"
he smiles

"weren't those days grand?"

Racism

I saw your hatred
And found that...
Arguing with you
Is like punching the floor
First I have to get down to your level
Just to communicate
Secondly, I ultimately hurt myself
Trying to vanquish a foe
That is already as low as you can get

-o0o-

Colonized

[this is still largely a poem under construction - please watch this place for further developments]

I

I feel inconsequential sometimes

Because of what you've done

You stole from me

You raped me

Over and over again

You destroyed my home and family

You tore apart my life

So I was quiet

II

You came to my bed at night

You put your hand on my ass

You put your cock in my mouth

And when I cried you hit me

And when I was quiet you hated me

When nobody was looking

When nobody cared

So I was quiet

III

You stole our home

You kept us alone at night

So that nobody would see

You raped my mother

You raped my grandmother

You pretty much raped anything if

You could get your pants off in time

So I was quiet

IV
And your hatred for black people
Was shouted through every window
Proclaimed to the world
Except when you slept with other men's wives
Who weren't white
But when my friends were black
You threatened to kick me out

You threatened my life

So I was quiet

V

You tore at the land with your machines

You took the metals and gold

You made yourself rich

And left me and the ones I love

You left us to die

And now you hate us

Because we weathered the storm

So I was quiet

VI

And you ran to the church

Where else can paedophiles hide

And you became a Mighty Man

How else do boys become men

But to rape their children

To slap their wives around

To threaten sixty five year old women

So I was quiet

VII
But I'm not that twelve year old anymore
I won't be quiet anymore
I won't simply stand idly by
And let you rape and steal
You're just another colonizer
To be kicked out
And liberation comes quickly
I will not be quiet anymore

Hypocrite

My friends always wonder why I get upset
When they say something racist.
Why I have to walk away sometimes,
when family talks badly of
black people
or Indian people
or coloured people.
They wonder why I often change the subject
of a conversation before they've finished their...

I am incapable of racism, you see.
I hate it.
Strange don't you think?
Because all white men should be racists.
It’s only natural, isn't it?
But I am not.
Thanks to you really.

You know my uncle was a black man.
My grandfather adopted him.
Of course you know, but you don't like it.
You hate it, because we are supposed to be white.
We are supposed to be pure.
Because somehow white skin is purer than black skin.
How can I be pure if I am related to a black man?
You like to think of yourself as pure,
But we all know that's not true.

My best friend at the time was black,
But you didn't know that.
David is such a "white" name after all.
My mother didn't teach me discrimination.
I never learned the language of hate.
So how could you know he was black?
I just spoke of my friend, not his skin colour.

Then I brought him home one day.
We were going to watch a movie.
We were going to walk to the cinema from home.
But you hated it.
I saw it in your eyes, he did too.
You told my mother to drive us there,
so that none of your friends would see
me walking with a black boy.

I remember my mom dropping him off
at home after the movie.
I remember getting home.
You grabbed me
You threw me down into your study.
Everyone was quiet.
Nobody said a word as you abused me.
"Kaffer lover!" you screamed,
"You want to go sleep with the fucking kaffers too?"
I didn't understand.
I was twelve.
I just cried.
I didn't want to be thrown out of the house.

Afterwards I just sat in my room, silently, for hours.
I heard you screaming at my mother.
I saw you throw her out of the glass sliding door
Into the palm garden by the pool.
"I know you had a Kaffer brother!" you screamed,
"I didn't know you fucked him and shat out another little Kaffer!"
You screamed pointing at my room.
Ironic coming from a man
Who fucks women who aren't white
Behind closed doors where his friends can't see.

Silly little hypocrite.

Since that day
Whatever seed of racism that may have been in me died.
Make no mistake
I still see skin colour.
Colour doesn't go away.
Nothing makes colour go away.
Without colour what would the world be
Dry and dull and dead.
Difference between me and you is;
Where you see a white man versus a "Kaffer"
I see my brothers and sisters in many colours.

This is the rainbow nation to me.
A future where colour is wealth and wellbeing.
Not, a cause for violence and hatred.
This is my dream South Africa.
A world just beyond our dreams and hopes.

We aren’t there yet.
People like you have made sure of that.
Hate mongers and racists.
Child abusers and hypocrites.
My future has no place for you.
My heaven has no place for you.
Heaven will spit you out.
And your skin will burn black.
Blacker than any skin you’ve grown to hate.

[Thanks for letting me use this David :D ]

-o0o-