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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the community garden, I talk to a friend about how our European ancestors gave up their lineage to become white.\u201d<\/p>\n
I cut sunflowers
\nas my mother taught me
\nnot by telling me just
\nme watching her, always,
\nand under the table listening
\nto the grown ups talk
\nwhen they thought I wasn’t there.<\/p>\n
You sever the bloom
\nfrom the main artery
\nand then you take off every
\nleaf. To keep it seeming alive
\nthe longest.<\/p>\n
Artist Q&A<\/strong><\/p>\n First, I want to say that as a white person, I really felt unsure about sending in work that spoke to how the system of white supremacy is passed down generationally, because I don’t want to take attention away from the critical focus on anti-black racism. \u00a0I finally sent it in because I think understanding white supremacy is critical to dismantling it, and I decided to trust the committee to decide if this poem was appropriate to include or not.<\/p>\n When you mention (European) ancestors who gave up their lineage to become white, what do you mean? What were these ancestors\u2019 histories?<\/strong><\/p>\n Most of my ancestors came from Ireland, Scotland, and France. Irish people are one of the groups that weren’t originally considered “white” when they came to the US, when race was still being created as a social and legal construct. Over time, and through the legal system, whiteness expanded to include more European-descended groups and those groups faced the decision of giving up their own identities and cultures and becoming (ever more) complicit in anti-black racism, in exchange for the very real legal and financial benefits to being white in the US. I am still learning a lot and am grateful for expanding my understanding how this cultural void of whiteness creates issues like cultural appropriation, because people are desperately disconnected from their own histories and practices. I’m trying to listen to the calls of BIPOC who are asking white people to understand their own lineages and what conditions their ancestors faced that led them to choose to participate in white supremacy, in addition to how it functions today.<\/p>\n You talk about the community garden. Do gardens serve a special function in preserving community ties?<\/strong><\/p>\n I think community gardens are a beautiful living heart of communities, or certainly have the potential to be. During the past nine months, for instance, there were many months when the community garden was the only place I saw people other than my two children. Gardens offer us the opportunities to get our hands in the earth, remember our primal knowledge and skills, and share them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cAt the community garden, I talk to a friend about how our European ancestors gave up their lineage to become white.\u201d I cut sunflowers as my mother taught me not by telling me just me watching her, always, and under the table listening to the grown ups talk when they thought I wasn’t there. You read more