I’ve been feeling a combination of numb and contrary. I still haven’t decided what I feel. The #BecauseIAm/ #IfIWere campaign has honorable goals, that I will never deny. But something in it renders me the one standing by the wayside, not fully a participant. Partly I’d attribute that to my inherent contrariness. But I also have to say

I’m conflicted.

Conflicted because I

wasn’t raised to hate

or back down to anyone

Because i only understood

the fear of the Other

when I left home

Because I feel silenced,

That i who would rejoice in all I am,

Am brought down by reminders

of challenges I’m assured i’ll face

Realism, you’ll say

it’s good to be pragmatic

and so it is

But to wallow,

to think only of the chains

and never the wide open spaces,

To be consumed whole by boundaries,

smothers the spirit

Then you will never see

that your chains are made of shadowed paper,

Broken by one tug and loosed

for you to spin in the spiral colors.

(It is this to which I refer: http://inside.blogs.brynmawr.edu/2014/09/18/letter-to-the-bryn-mawr-community-from-dean-balthazar/ and the protest of race marginalization that followed.)