Writer and spoken word artist Kyla Jenee Lacey he shared a poem in her YouTube channel on 31 May that perfectly puts the white privilege in perspective. The heartbreaking poem, entitled “White Privilege”, was originally written in 2014 and it leads to a deep and powerful look at the injustices faced by the Black community for over 400 years, playing in key events throughout history that have perpetuated the society, an imbalance that continues to stand today.
“I grew up with this type of thinly veiled racism. It was not necessarily hostile, but it was definitely not quiet, either.”
The poem is called the privileges accorded to those with lighter skin and the injustices thrust upon the members of the Black community. As a tribute to the Black Lives Matter movement, the opening clip shows a chart listing the names of hundreds of Black men and women who lost their lives in cases of police brutality. “A lot of times, I think, people have a hard time accepting certain things as racist, because they know that they have done those things,” said Lacey POPSUGAR. “No one wants to see as the bad guy of the film. No one wants to look like the monster under the bed.”
Lacey’s poem has gone viral several times since the first time they performed at the National Poetry Slam in Decatur, GA in 2016, and it gained even more popularity after she played in Write About Now (WAN) of the Poetry, in Houston, in the year 2017. The poem attracted the anger-fueled criticism, and hateful comments in the past, but more recently, has had the effect of provoking a conversation about what it really means to have white privilege. “I think a lot of people think that the story exists in a vacuum . . . that all that is, and there are centuries and generations that have caused things to happen,” Lacey added. “I grew up with this type of thinly veiled racism. It was not necessarily hostile, but it was definitely not quiet, either.”
“[The poem] it is also completely relevant to time and time again,” she said. “I would way prefer that the poem not be relevant that is because I was pissed off when I wrote it . . . If I could live in a world where I don’t have to write things like that, which would be better for me in the long term.” See Lacey read the full text of the spoken word poem here and take a look at this list of political and civil actions that you can take to fight against racial injustice now.
