Fake Za’atar and Spring and Something Else

Recorded at the YMCA Metro Central on November 2, 2015

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Words

Words, words, words are so important, and words are my tool Words are how I express myself Don’t be mistaken by angry words, for anger is a result of oppression Don’t take my words as words of protest, just take them, listen to them, work with them I have a right to use my words, for I live here, grew up here, since the age of 4 No one can understand my pain unless you’ve grown up in my shoes All too often I’ve been hurt by words of ignorance “The N Word”—ignorance You’re not Black you don’t act Black—ignorance I’m not prejudice I have a black friend—ignorance Ignorance all ignorance If there is to be a solution to the problem we must work together, we must use words We can no longer remain oblivious to what surrounds us; racism, the system I work with children and it hurts me when I ask them questions about their identity and they know nothing It hurts me when I say to a child—What does it mean to be Black? Response—to be Black is to be “The N Word” Words, words, words, the wrong words coming from our youth We must take away this negativity and replace it with positivity and the truth We must teach children to use words like Afro Canadian I attend Dalhousie University, I went through the Transition Year Program and I’m proud of it I love myself and my people and it’s evident Every day I look for myself in hospitals, on campus, in books, in the plays we read in class I don’t see myself Every day I hear my white friends talk in a Black lingo and I think that’s not how I talk Don’t they realize they are hurting me? My hurt runs deep, my hurt is my history Words, I will use my words Someday I will direct and write plays and use my words about my people Words, words words are so important and words are my tool Words are how I express myself Don’t mistake my words of anger for anger is a sign of oppression Don’t take my words as words of protest, just take them, listen to them work with them . . .

Chinatown East

Keep holding me like this and help me untie my birth language my first language steeped in bruises, knotted up in a child’s still body petrified with fear words thrown at me alcoholic bodies raging into me embedded like ceramic shards all around my little heart me, so small and already convinced my home felt like captivity .  . . .