last weekend i was at a comedy show.
the comic stood up and said “let’s face it san luis obispo, everyone in this room is white.”
he was the second comic in a row to address the “all white audience.”

erased.
just like that.
i’m white
(just like everyone else in this room.)
i’m white.
never-mind that my paternal grandparents immigrated from mexico and my own abuela, grandmother lupé, exclusively spoke spanish until the day she left her body.

i’m white.
never-mind that my maternal grandfather lived thru eugenics, segregated schooling and went to a “colored” university in the south.

that same beloved grandfather passed suddenly and tragically in the middle of a snowstorm, while on vacation.
when my nona returned from the hospital devastated and shocked, a young buck passed right in front of her car as she pulled into the driveway. for the longest and briefest of moments he paused and faced her directly. long enough for her to see my grandfather in his eyes and feel him saying goodbye.
my grandfather was that buck.
this gave her great solace and she asked me to include a buck in the design of his memorial card.

upon researching deer in that area, i discovered it was a mule deer. (everyone loved this fact.) “of course it was a mule deer!” they happily exclaimed. (my grandfather had big ears that he could wiggle independently and was stubborn as all get out!)

upon further research, i learned that it was a black tailed mule deer. “oh no,” i was told. “you can’t say that.”

“negrino.” my nona said in italian (she immigrated from florence after the war with my grandfather when he returned from his american military service.) he lived the remainder of his life never speaking of his history and passed as an honorary italian. “it was a mule deer. just a mule deer.”

his blackness was a secret.

i’m white
(just like everyone else in this room.)

lately, (all the time) i feel the complexity of the intersections of identity that instantly and unconsciously color how you see me,
(how i see you)
how i see me,
(how you see yourself)
before time and space for true knowing has made way.

for a lifetime i’ve been feeling into how these perceptions and biases inform behavior and policy.
calcified, rigidified, systemically reinforced, imbedded in our institutions and codified by law…
let’s not pretend we’re colorblind.
racism is still legal.

just walking around the world in the body i was born in, wrapped in the skin that expresses melanin the way it does,
i benefit.

i benefit
even as so much of me is erased.

daily i experience the invisibility of these selves, held so close to my own heart yet living unseen on my skin.

i carry light skin privilege.
i don’t look like my own kin.
parts of me are painful even for me to see.

i carry the genetic and nervous system imprint of my ancestors.

i come from the oppressor.
i come from the oppressed.
i hear all of these voices underneath my skin.

sometimes (most times)
i wonder where i belong.

i want to see you.

i want to be seen.

i long to hear your heart through the clear channel of mine

daily, i work to hold
with responsible care
all of these family histories.

i love you.
more and more i’m coming to love and claim all of my selves.

♥️, artemisia shine

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

My Ancestry DNA
by Fred Lamott

My Ancestry DNA results came in.
Just as I suspected, my great great grandfather
was a monarch butterfly.
Much of who I am is still wriggling under a stone.
I am part larva, but part hummingbird too.
There is dinosaur tar in my bone marrow.
My golden hair sprang out of a meadow in Palestine.
Genghis Khan is my fourth cousin,
but I didn’t get his dimples.
My loins are loaded with banyan seeds from Sri Lanka,
but I descended from Ravanna, not Ram.
My uncle is a mastodon.
There are traces of white people in my saliva.
3.7 billion years ago I swirled in golden dust,
dreaming of a planet overgrown with lingams and yonis.
More recently, say 60,000 B.C.
I walked on hairy paws across a land bridge
joining Sweden to Botswana.
I am the bastard of the sun and moon.
I can no longer hide my heritage of raindrops and cougar scat.
I am made of your grandmother’s tears.
You conquered rival tribesmen of your own color,
chained them together, marched them naked to the coast,
and sold them to colonials from Savannah.
I was that brother you sold, I was the slave trader,
I was the chain.
Admit it, you have wings, vast and golden,
like mine, like mine.
You have sweat, black and salty,
like mine, like mine.
You have secrets silently singing in your blood,
like mine, like mine.
Don’t pretend that earth is not one family.
Don’t pretend we never hung from the same branch.
Don’t pretend we don’t ripen on each other’s breath.
Don’t pretend we didn’t come here to forgive.