Binghamton, 1991. We all sat in a downtown restaurant. A waiter took all of our orders–except for our friend seated at the head of the table.
He was the only one among us with a brown complexion.
waning moon
an “I meant no offense”
too little too late
The Bronx, 2010s. One of my students, a young man of color, told me how a store employee followed him when he entered certain bodegas. Store detectives did the same when he entered department stores like Macy’s. When “Stop and Frisk” was still legally practiced by the NYPD, he lost count of how many times he was stopped.
cloudy night
too many hard stares
to accomodate
Anywhere in the present. Various friends and aquaintances with white skin protest their priviledge. They tell me how they began with “nothing” and earned “everything they made.” Some of them claim that they “don’t see color.”
I remember my friend from Binghamton. I recall my student from the last decade. I wonder what they would say to my pale-complexion friends, who never endured anything like that, and who’ll never wonder whether or not they didn’t get the loan/job/house because of the color of their skin.
first starlight
the deniers of priviledge
protest too much
for dVerse Poets’ Poetics: On Privilege (pubtended by Anmol (alias HA))
Frank J. Tassone 
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