Measuring White

White opinions always matter
women’s rarely do.
So she dons a suit of I Am Serious
to discover how white she’s willing to lie

White lives define the Civilized
Black, the dark and wild
White hangs Black art to the sound of Black music
oh Black is still something White loves to buy

White speaks White English grammatically
an accent a sign of the barbarous
White is proud to only know White to choke
on the tongues grandparents forced parents to swallow

White families, the realm of the norm, of bliss
the choice to live queer, abomination
Now measure the cost of the fight to be civil
Gasp at the price of domestication

the measure of White the measure of right the measure of kith
and kin                the measure of White the measure of light to see
who is out and who in               the measure of White the measure of
might the measure of power that does us all in

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2 reasons I am, today, once again, furious about White:
The Apartheid of Children’s Literature

Last year, only 93 of the 3,200 children’s books published were about Black people. That works out to less than three-percent