Reflections from the perspective of another white teacher

Reflections from the perspective of another white teacher

Due solely to a pair of chromosomes

and invisible functions I do not understand,

I’m white and male; and for justifiable reasons

beyond my control, this makes me many things:

I am a high-wire act, striding atop

a shaky rope between the gaping pit

of ancestral ownership and the airy expanse

of individual innocence. I am

a greenhouse gardener, tending the diverse plants

surrounding me the best I know how, yet knowingly blind

to what is going on beneath the surface,

unable to fully understand the roots.

I am a choral singer, a unique voice

so often feeling lost amidst the swell

of a choir that looks but does not sound like me,

lost within a swaying mass of white.   

And yet I know I am an influencer,

whose single voice can change the choir’s song

for better or for worse; whose tending hand

can nurture or suppress a fledgling plant;

whose high-wire act in front of a watching crowd

can show that though its shaky, balance can be

achieved. And so I’ll shamelessly sing and garden

and balance the only way I know: white

and male, a part of the majority

and yet a voice that will not be ignored,

a voice that cannot be replicated,

a voice that will unrepentantly shout for Truth.