skonen_blades

You can BE a good person with mistaken beliefs.
The fact you can change does not make you weak.
If YOU try to COMprehend other folks’ views
Accepting them doesn’t mean “they win, you lose”
Invisible privilege is real hard to see
I’ll tell you a tale of what happened to me
Of the ignorant person that I used to be
Of the changes I’ve gone through. And I MEAN recently.
I grew up poor in a small BC town
We didn’t have much that was non-white around
But I grew up odd and was bullied a lot
Often lamenting the life that I got
Believing that I was a downtrodden boy
A victim oppressed without that much joy
A person in touch with ev-er-y-one
A judgement-free liberal, enlightened son.
BUT AT THE SAME TIME I was steeped in my whiteness
My maleness, my ignorant, cisgendered rightness
But still I allowed my young mind to believe
The rhet’ric of privilege didn’t PERtain to me
I thought I was kind and, ironically
I raged at the people who dared disagree
But as the years passed and experience grew
I realized that THERE’S less of ME than of you
That being locked into this skull is a curse
That bias is natural. And what makes it worse.
Is it’s easy to never examine your mind.
Cause we’re all the good guy. We’re all fair and kind.
My point is I changed. I’m still changing now.
I ask myself why. I ask myself how.
I try to unpack and in-VES-tigate
I try to reflect more. I try to relate.
I feel like I’m woke but I know that I’m wrong.
I know that the path to awareness is long.
I know that I’ll never be fully awake.
No matter how hard of a path that I take.
There’s racists that don’t know they’re racists out there.
Misogynists thinking they’re fully aware
I saw some graffiti down in the east end
In spray paint it said “If you ain’t white, pretend.”
Shutting off empathy can make you feel strong.
Certainty can feel like power. That’s wrong.
Rigidity can feel like pure confidence.
But that doesn’t make any actual sense.
In closing, it’s hard to be called out on stuff.
No one likes being ‘accused’ and it’s rough.
But open your ears and your eyes and your mind.
No matter how woke. No matter how kind.
‘Cause while you can feel so enlightened you’re glowing
Stay humble. The process is always ongoing.
I was born on lost ground. There’s a lot to make up.
And miles to go before I wake up.



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