White Privilege

We wake up.
We go to work.
We come home.
We turn on the news.
We sit in silence,
reading the headlines:
Ferguson.
New York City.
Baltimore.
Charleston.
We turn off the TV.
We go to bed.

That is white privilege.

Here’s
a joke:
A muslim walks into a bar.
What’s he called?
A terrorist.
But here’s the punchline a
white man walks into a church,
kills nine,
and we blame it on his mind.
We forget our nation was built
on the backs our ancestors broke.
We say, “THIS IS NOT AMERICA,”
while waving a Confederate flag,
but do you remember Apartheid?
They always bring up the Holocaust,
but nobody ever looks around and says,
“This. This is genocide.”

We wake up.
We go to work.
We come home.
We turn on the TV.
We turn our heads.
We look away.
We say, “This is not us.
That is not who I am.”

We forget
about the blood
on our hands.

By Lindsey Hobart

Biography:

Lindsey Hobart is a seventeen year-old poet from a New York town that’s as quiet as her voice. Her work has been featured in Canvas Lit and she is a winning Slam Poet.