Abstract
This poem addresses the limitations of language for representing experience and shaping political action at this historical moment of inquiry. Words have the power to name or to silence. Who owns a particular narrative, and who has a right speak for whom? As worldwide political, social, and environmental issues become ever more pressing, we need pragmatic tools to bridge the gap between naming and doing, and strategies to move from fear and passivity to collective agency.
Keywords
by my words I reveal myself stand naked under your gaze and a hidden pair of eyes or thousands of them, undress me in the hallway in academe on the Internet if I say I I am excluding you and if I say you I am presuming to speak for you and if I say we I am promoting hegemonic discourse and if I say they I am finding a grammatical solution to the problematic he or she or othering the not-we if I say sexual assault policy I am not listening or I am holding the institution to account and don’t I know policies are political texts that write totalitarian discourses on the bodies of the disenfranchised if I say victim of rape I am disrespecting survivors of myriad forms of violence unless I say my rape and undress myself for you all over again if I say native do I mean aboriginal or indigenous and does indigenous disavow the scottish part of my ancestry and what about the disrespect implied by lower case the colonial intent of a pan-indian construct the power of a label to invoke racism, recall cultural genocide, trigger intergenerational trauma and what right do I have to say indigenous if I am not the circle shrinks my memories are a permissible sphere for scrutiny even here I handle words with care little bombs that might go off landmines that wait for an unwary foot if I voice this poem I violate institutional norms I am not playing nice releasing words to history that turn and bite my hand safer to press my lips shut an irony in the eighth moment when unpeeling identity politics multivocal methods, reflexivity and a politics of hope could lead us to a democratic praxis of social justice but I can’t say us while we are finger-pointing— well then, I mean I— while I am having discourse analysis performed upon my constipated words (a passive construction signaling subterfuge) colluding in and co-constructing a witch hunt on myself the six media corporations in america produce for gendered consumption pink and purple pretty princesses for little girls and superhero action figures for little boys who learn that violence is their identity story bodies to market, bodies for sale girls and women edited out of the news and out of history the military diverts economic resources to killing the church screws little boys eight corporations control what we eat puppets prance on political platforms multinationals are clear-cutting planet earth draining aquifers sucking, selling dirty oil entertaining me, distracting me, consuming me because I am alive, I am complicit by staying alive, I resist but in this overheated climate I am silent words have nailed me I turn my gaze inward perform a disrobing for a community of co-participants mouth the word of the day the cultural script witness pain of lived experience vicariously, virtually passively avert my I while the world burns how did I get to disaster’s edge white woman, insider yet somehow outside cry for the child I was full of ethnographic good intentions and for my grandchildren if I can say my as the world ticks midnight
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.