Part 1: Testimony

He is just a fucking
privileged white man,
caught up in the delusion
that he’s more,
that he’s important,
when he’s less.

Poor man wrestling with echoes
from a past that haunts him still:
mother’s mental illness and
alone in the world, poverty,
not privilege, is his private hell.

But still he is a fucking
privileged white man
living this lie of paternalistic
gain, when all along, all along,
beneath the labels that are
so easy to frame, there is
the pain of a life of struggle,
a life hidden in the need for
significance, a life not about
division but finding a way home.

This fucking privileged white man
has never hurt a soul, but soul he
seeks in living with the honesty
that streams from within,
streams from his history,
streams from his hurt,
pours from the wounds
that having healed
are most resident in his pain,
and shape his wish for justice,
and ride his waking steps,
in a world caught in labels that
conquer and divide as he
seeks but never finds the
mythical hidden whole.

Still, he is a fucking privileged white man
till the day he fucking dies: and what a
day of rejoicing that will be when this
fucking privileged white man will find,
yes, he will find,
I know he will find,
his fucking unmarked grave.

Part 2: Words

Privileged:
special,
wealthy,
class,
dominant,
controlling,
accessing,
opportunities,
repressing,
unexpected,
thankful,
openings,
talented,
person.

White:
Europe,
British,
colonial,
superior,
invasion,
massacre,
racist,
black,
slave,
ethnicity,
colour,
palate,
mixing,
complex,
browns,
pink,
shades,
greys,
person

Man:
sex,
gender,
gay,
straight,
other,
dominant,
repressive,
fear,
history,
conquest,
violence,
female,
feelings,
thought,
love,
life,
seed,
reproduction,
family,
community,
culture,
evolution,
origin,
human,
person.

Person.

For Derrida

22/2/2021