How to be a White Woman in Our Country Today

Wonder what it’s like to be in the skin of a minority

Hold up a mirror real close

Remember, your body is now under authority

Look deeply into the pores of your skin

With a microscope, scan the top layer - refuse to look within

Take a knife and slice a piece off

Did it hurt, did it bite?

Slice more pieces until you have cuts landscaping your body

How do you feel now?

Damaged? Flawed? Disembodied?

What will it take for your oppressor to stop cutting your skin?

Now widen your lens with the microscope

WIDER

WIDER

WIDER

What do you see? Does this feel like a win?

You are now mutilated by the hands of the whole system

Realize when you’ve been maimed, you feel angry and depressed

Look into your eyes

Do you still feel human?

Your heart may be aching and want a rest

You may feel tender and raw

and rightfully so

you were cut by the hands of someone who could only see your skin

so close

You were mangled by an entity who thought they were separate from you

But if you pull back, you can see the arms are attached too

To a body, a person, a human

You have focused in on the wrong problem

The problem isn’t the skin, it’s the slicing of your divinity within

It’s the inability to see the forest through the trees

Stop blindly making cuts on whole humans when you only see knees

Stop zooming in on the details that fail to see the whole

because the problem doesn’t exist in the skin

The problem lies in the hands who make cuts on the soul

Don’t make the problem the culture when it’s the cutters

Don’t make the problem the water when it’s the gutters

Don’t make the problem the sunlight when it’s the shutters

Realize that you are not immune to the microscope

And once it’s on you, you may lose hope

You will not be seen as human anymore, but just skin

You will not be protected by the narrow margins of whiteness or who you are within

When you decide to zoom out and stand up for the ones who were “othered”

There will still be people who use their microscope to kill each other

It's important that you keep a wide lens

It’s important that you continue to focus on the human

It’s important that you use your hands to heal and not kill

It’s important that you use your arms to hug

and your eyes to see love

It’s important that you use your body to stand between what is right and wrong

because you are not your skin

and you are not the cuts

You are a divine being capable of compassion and love

So make sure you take the microscope

Throw it in the trash

Take several steps away

But be prepared for backlash

To be a white woman in the world today

means to put your whiteness on the line

for the rest of humanity

And if you decide not to do this

thats okay

but just know that keeping your voice quiet

and hiding from the riots

won’t make the problem go away

Eventually, the arms of other humans will make cuts on you too

just remember this if you decide not to do

So please widen your perception if you want to understand the

world is not perfection

And making cuts on skin when you can’t see wide or within

causes incredible harm to the entire system you live in

Take note of the flaws, the cuts, and how much it hurts

And remember, in the end we will all be buried in the same dirt