Racism should have no place in a society that
constitutionally guarantees multiculturalism. However, that is pure fiction as
anyone who lives here knows and understands. Everyone encounters racism every day
in some form or the other. We all learn to tolerate it, ignore it, live with
it, and get worked up over it. Different people and different groups experience
it differently.
Two recently published volumes of poetry deal with racism –
Michael Fraser’s To Greet Yourself Arriving (Tightrope Books) and Vivek Shraya’s
even this page is white (Arsenal Pulp Press); although the treatment is
different.
Michael Fraser’s To Greet Yourself Arriving is a collection
of poems that profile black heroes. The poems are revelatory, educative, and
inspirational. They tell (or retell differently) stories of heroes – some admired,
loved; but many unsung, forgotten. As Michael
said in an interview to Open Book Toronto, “To Greet Yourself Arriving is
expository in nature for readers who are oblivious to these great Black
historical figures.”
That this is a historically significant book is evident on
every page. In his foreword to the collection, George Elliot Clarke, puts it simply:
“I think this book is an event in Anglo-Canadian poetry, which is usually about
(white) anti-heroes: Billy the Kid, Louis Riel, even serial rapist and
teen-girl-murderer Paul Bernardo (see Lynn Crosbie’s Paul Case). Moreover,
these other portraiture poems tend to be of disturbed – and /or disturbing –
personalities. But Fraser gives us characters who, even if tortured by their
experiences of “race” and / or racism, win through to a stardom that edges into
heroism, not just (justified)
narcissism. The “Panthers” were bad black brothers in black leather and black
berets, but they also “fly-kicked / and cold-slapped cotton-hooded laws with
upstart intensity.” Can I get an amen?
Fraser doesn’t just show his subjects with scars and flaws, gold stars and
halos, but almost always with a generous, cinematic light, eliminating any
notion of Squalor.”
What makes the collection memorable and masterly is that
none of the poems are hagiographical. Each has been crafted and carved,
polished and chiseled with care and attention. Here is one that will resonate with
global audience.
Pelé
I never
allowed my feet to
drift the
way others did,
even when
my age occupied
the area
of two splayed hands.
I placed
flags and kicks in
the
collective mind slavery erected.
I
shattered racism’s edge and
introduced
Brasil to itself while
Garrincha
and I were TV heroes,
two of
eleven disciples conducting
sermons on
pitches greener than our
flag, the
future’s symbol. It’s spinning
globe
shouts, “ordem e progresso,”
order and
progress through all the months
of
February. When this carnival nation
started
bleaching itself into oblivion,
I ushered
in acceptance of black players
and distilled
laughing sambas through
the ball’s
movement. In a polyglot
world,
there is only one true
language,
and I’m its ambassador.
I interviewed Michael in March, just prior to his book launch, on my show Living Multiculturalism on TAG TV. Here's it is:
I interviewed Michael in March, just prior to his book launch, on my show Living Multiculturalism on TAG TV. Here's it is:
Vivek Shraya’s even this page is white is often an angry cry
but is also sardonic, sarcastic plainspeak that doesn’t mince words. It frequently
has the reader wincing at the raw and passionate exposure of wounded emotions. Articulate
and vocal about her orientation and preference, Vivek often uses words as a
knife, with a clear intention to wound not kill, just as racism doesn’t kill,
but leaves a deep, permanent gash that never heals. Her poems are wounds that
she shares with us, wounds that fester forever.
In a recent profile on the Toronto Arts Council website, Shraya
describes the collection thus: “… [P]oetry allowed me to articulate truths and
pose tough questions without needing to provide answers.” Shraya, who sees
poetry as a freeing genre, in part, because there’s no sense of pressure to
create a resolution for the reader. She goes on to explain that “Discussions
around racism are often met with defensiveness so I am hoping that readers will
allow the words to sink in and work through the questions posed in the poetry.”
Writing about the poems on the back cover of the collection,
George Elliot Clarke, says, “even this page is white demands that all of us
account for our visions of ‘colour’ and / or ‘race’ frontally and peripherally,
with ocular proofs. Shraya is the poet-optometrist, correcting our vision and
letting us see our identities without rose-coloured glasses, but with naked
optics. Her book isn’t even-handed, but dexterous and sinister, in
demonstrating, in revelatory poem after revelatory poem, why ‘often brown feels
like but’ and why even a good white person – with a ‘golden heart’ – ‘can be
racist.’ Reader, you have work to do!”
The collection is stark in its portrayal of everyday racism,
the everyday encounters of prejudices and biases, and how these affect us all. Here’s
a great sample from the collection:
the truth
about the race card
is that
even before i knew what it meant
i knew not
to play it refused
to spin brown into excuse let it hold me back
believed
you when you said we are the same
blamed my parents and camouflaged to prove
you right
no wonder you couldn’t see me
people who
said racism were whinny or lazy
and i was
neither
but there’s
no worth for my work no toll for my toil
when you
hold the cards keys gavels
unravelled,
brown is not a barrier you are
and when
you say don’t play the race card
you mean don’t call me white.
I'm going to interview Vivek Shraya on my show in June. I'll post the video link once it's uploaded.
