When an Institution Tells You They are an Anti-Racist One
When an institution tells you they are an anti-racist one
You will forget the hundreds of times you’ve heard this.
It is the Welcome Week of the fall quarter,
And they aren’t even there to tell you this in person,
But instead from far away voices standing on the rooftop of a festival,
They are celebrating student enrollment.
And, of course, you will smile
Because it sounds like they mean it.
Because you want to believe them.
Because an institution has never rolled over to you those words
Tied with that ribbon in the sky from that song.
Full of wonder. Waiting to make interactions with you.
Their smiles, dancing laughing flowers following the sun around
While your socially distant mind, trying to re-socialize into distant times, says
“Fine. I believe you, this time.”
They’re arms, stretched as wide as the opportunities
Completing a degree program can open,
Waiting to be wrapped around your diploma like a bow.
They will remember the time you told the business office
What you would do with your scholarship money
And that will feed them forever, but it gets expensive.
When an institution tells you they are an anti-racist one,
You will hear Carnival.
The parade of all your past institutions dancing up from your stomach
All the way down the lane until the music begins to fade
And your memories are re-written and become a dismissed and silent ride home alone.
That is when you remember that
When an institution tells you that they are an anti-racist one
They mean, they are about to start racelighting you now.
This institution will tell you they’re an anti-racist one
Not long after ham-handedly handing over to you your ledger
A tuition bill filled with technology service fees
During a time when all classes were held online.
Patience is something you were working on, but no.
Not for them.
When they ask you if you feel like they are an anti-racist one
You be standing in the kitchen with a late-night bowl of instant ramen.
You will watch the of your words spill on to the floor.
You will remember the day the butterflies in your stomach were
Captured and studied in the name of science,
You have decolonize their definition of the word peace
To a definition that is as loud and chaotic as picked bones from your grandmothers grave,
So you ax them with questions that push them to the edge—
At what point is archeology not grave robbing—
One by one, the voices fall as silently as the butterflies do.
Brown creeps around the green leaves and it’s time for finals.
When an institution tells you they are an anti-racist one,
Only to become silent like the microaggressions
That are passed around like calendar reminders with
Razor-blade edges,
Reminding you not to bleed your truth all over campus,
Standing at your door with
Land and labor acknowledgements only to add
To your ledgers tuition fees,
The barriers that they will later use to call you resilient and strong,
Do not cover your scars to make them feel accomplished.
They have no idea about what an anti-racist institution looks like.
One has never existed, remember?
They are just another historically structured institution. Remember?