creative writing

The Language of Oppression

/ Rebecca J. Whitman / 2 Comments

The language of oppression hides

in bitterness and hate, cowers

beneath tables and folds

of a woman’s skirts, lowers

its head and hands

to the feeding trough, surrenders

its body while its insides

scream defiance and resistance

The language of oppression chokes

out Truth, stifles

what really happened

to our mixed race

American

I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately. I’m wrapped up in poetry and editing books where I am taking the last classes of my master’s degree in English. After reading a lot of Native American poets like Layli Long Soldier, I was moved to respond to the way so many Americans are stuck looking backwards. Even though their narratives are stories happening right now, they are influenced by a perception that some Americans are victims who are owed something by other Americans who were oppressors. There is something wrong with that.

On this blog, I shared a very personal poem from my own struggles with identity and heritage. That poem went on to be published by Sylvia Magazine.

No one would imagine I would have such issues, though, because I am as white as white can be. In our culture, white is synonymous with oppression. In the South, I am particularly aware of the hateful stares of my “minority” neighbors. Everyone assumes that I have had an easier life because I am white and that my ancestors owned their ancestors. If they asked, I’d tell them the truth: my ancestors lived in tiny rooms with newspaper walls on land they did not own. They worked alongside former slaves; they didn’t own any slaves of their own.

Racial identity is a complicated thing in America. We want to claim a strand of our DNA like we are pure bred of that nationality. The truth is that we are all mixed. If it were not so, we would not have survived in this brutal, foreign land. For love or survival, we formed alliances with other cultures and mixed our blood with our neighbors.

I can look back on that and say my poor ancestors were taken advantage of by an oppressive majority race, or I can look back on that truth and say my ancestors made sacrifices to afford a better quality of life for their offspring. I believe both are true, but which one perpetuates peace and harmony in society today?

We can’t change the past. At some point, we have to make peace with what happened to our ancestors and be thankful for the sacrifices that were made to provide a chance for a new life for all of us. The American melting pot is not easy or beautiful to all groups of people, yet we all are that pot. We need to realize that it says more for our resilience and determination that we are still here despite all the atrocities of the past than it does to point fingers at others and claim we are better than them because we were victims. In every family tree, there are both victims and victimizers. Instead of more protests, insincere apologies, and tax-paid handouts, we should embrace our own life story and make the most of the days we are given.

Looking back on history is not where we find our identity; it is where we learn how to do better in our own lives. True identity can only be found in Christ.

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A Thimble-Full of Native American Blood

/ Rebecca J. Whitman / 2 Comments

I don’t need a DNA test to tell me who my mother is; I know who she was. –A.D.

I tell you that what you know is wrong;

                we are not natives, we are whites

                more British than the British, in fact

I tell you that your mother

              registered white on the census;

              she was never half Indian

I tell you that the memories of her chewing

a black gum tree twig, dancing

in circles with my father, laughing

while fry bread sizzles

in an iron skillet

are just country

I tell you that the only record remotely

                supporting this identity

                is the marriage record saying

                Colored

It never occurs to me to consider

                                          race was a perception

                                                                  not an identity

                                                                             and perception lies

It never occurs to me

                               that one culture

                                                    can completely erase

                                                                                              another

Yet there it is on paper:

              colored = powerless, vulnerable

                           White = Entitled To Own

There it is on paper:

               my native antecedents slipping

                                      off their indian skins, a thin layer

                                                                 of vanilla ice cream melting

                                                                                                  from their chins

In the mid-1800s following the Emancipation Proclamation and during reconstruction in the South, white plantation owners feared a loss of land to freed slaves and Native Americans. As a result, in North Carolina, the State Constitution made changes to label all non-whites as “colored” and designate that “colored” people could neither own land nor marry. Native Americans were encouraged to assimilate. If they could look white and pass for white, they claimed they were whites. It was the only way they could have a chance for a fair life in the new world, but it was also the way that many Native American tribes disappeared from history….including my own.

 

A Grown-up Christmas Morn

/ Rebecca J. Whitman / 9 Comments

*Twas the morning of Christmas, when all through the house,
Not a creature was resting, not even a mouse.

The stockings were hung on the walker with care,

as it rolled through the house…everywhere.

Us grown-ups were waiting in our own recliners,

While visions of gift wrap filled trash can liners.

And dad in his blanket, and I in ice packs,

were switching the channels and eating up snacks.

When out in the yard, there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from my seat to see what was the matter.

I flew like a flash, away to the hatch;

I turned the brass handle and opened the latch.

The sun on the breast of the sandy farm rows,

gave a lustrous illusion of Christmas’ snows.

Then what to my wondering ears did I hear?

But the curling of ribbon. Presents are near!

With a jolly ol’ lady so lovely and quick,

I knew in a moment she must be Mrs. St. Nick.

More rapid than eagles her scissors did fly,

As she lifted her voice in carols to the sky:

“Here we are as in olden days, happy golden days of yore. Faithful friends who are dear to us, gather near to us once more. Through the years we all will be together if the fate allow. So hang a shining star upon the highest bough, and have yourself a Merry little Christmas now.”

Her voice mingles with scissors, ribbon, and tape;

a melody of sweet holiday escape.

As leaves before a hurricane, she flies;

when faced with an obstacle she takes to the skies.

Surrounded by supplies she’s having a blast

of making grown-up wishes happy at last.

And then in a twinkling I heard from the room,

a crack and a clackle; a monstrous boom!

Just as I got up and began to move around,

Out of the room Mrs. St. Nick came with a bound.

She wore a simple gown with fur at the collar.

She looked frazzled and about to hollar.

A bundle of ribbons were stuck to her back,

and she looked like a jokester just stole her pack.

Her eyes–how they twinkled! Her dimples, how merry!

Her cheeks were like roses, her nose like a cherry!

Her droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,

and the hair on her head was like silvery snow.

The stump of a pen she held tight in her teeth,

and the ink, it encircled her mouth like a wreath.

She had a broad face and a little round belly,

that shook when she laughed like a bowl full of jelly.

She was chubby and plump, a right jolly ol’ elf!

And I laughed when I saw her in spite of myself.

The wink in her eye and the twist in her head,

told me I had nothing to dread.

She spoke not a word, she went straight to her work;

filling the tree with presents then she turned with a jerk.

Then laying her finger aside of her nose,

and giving a nod, up the chimney she rose.

She sprang to the sleigh and to her team gave a whistle,

and away they all flew like the down on a thistle.

But I heard her exclaim ere she drove out of sight,

“Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!”

*This poem was written this morning inspired by the activity in my home and by a few familiar classics. I hope you enjoyed it.