Skip to main content

Intention

What fuels the hubris of racism 
other than the people's refusal 
to confront the intentional history
of crafting the white supremacy lie? 

The lies of the colonizers became
the constructed sins of the nation 
as they were crafted with the intention 
of being an expanding yoke of injustice. 

The yoke's intentional lies produce
absurd but commonly accepted untruths 
fostering actions, both committed and omitted,
of reinforced oppression, privilege, and shame.

Instead of aspiring for justice, 
the dominant group ignores calls
for resolution and dismissively bequeaths
the unjust yoke to the intentions of tomorrow.

The weight of yesteryear's enshrined sin
is today's burden of lived experience
until you give intention to the heavy lifting
required to dismantle the lies supporting the yoke.

Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you for reading Leslye's Labyrinth. I welcome your comments.

Popular posts from this blog

My Anger

Anger drains me -- emotionally and physically. It is an act of violence against myself and I try not to experience it intensely for this reason. The celebration or glorification of the culture of violence angers me especially when it is done by a person who has been given authority. A priest in my archdiocese posting a photo on social media of himself holding an automatic firearm, a weapon of war, while wearing his clerical collar angers me greatly. As a Black woman in a southern state, I am aware of the use of law and order rhetoric as a racist trope as is the priest's expressed intention of "protecting my people and property."  We also live in a period when stand your ground laws are used to justify murder. Sadly, I remember the murder of a child, Tamir Rice, who was killed because he was a Black boy playing with a toy gun.  There are many people who respect firearms and use them for hunting and sport. They understand and respect the deadly force at their fingertip. Gro...
Post a Comment
Read more

New Site

  To read the latest on Leslye's Labyrinth, visit http://bit.ly/leslyeslabyrinth
Post a Comment
Read more

When You Say, "I'm Not Racist"

When you say,  "I'm not racist," you deny the complexity of a system built on the racist ideas born of white supremacy. When you say,  "I don't see color," you do not understand that making judgements based on color is the problem, not seeing color.  When you say,  "I was taught to treat everyone the same," you deny the limitations of your being kind when the system denies my dignity. When you say,  "But, I'm a Christian," you deny the whitening of Jesus' body and the distortion of his Gospel for economic gain through the genocide of indigenous people, the enslavement of Africans, and other atrocities against people of color. When you say,  "My child is Black," you conflate your love for one person with a love for all. When you say,  "My family never enslaved people" you deny how the injustices of slavery were transformed to perpetuate your illusion of white supremacy. Wh...
Post a Comment
Read more