Being a POC in a PWI
by Jordanna E. Garland
Being a POC in a PWI means
pretending to be someone you’re not
all the time.
Fighting in your mind,
carefully crafting your lines,
just to qualify to be seen.
Being a POC in a PWI means
not being seen,
even when you’ve done all the quote unquote “right things”.
(The white things).
The listen to this kind of music kind of things.
The talk like this kind of things.
The don’t talk about these things kind of things.
It’s smiling when you feel like screaming,
but knowing you can’t scream
because you’ll become the stereotype
deemed as:
“mean”
“loud”
and “aggressive”.
So you sit,
and restrict
your tongue
to fit
the whack white vocabulary
so they
don’t become wary
of you.
Of your
Blackness.