Ain't I Got A Vote?

By E. Paris Whitfield

Strangest things occur

when time, environment, and

socialization is manipulated.

It's harder to grasp between

what's material and

what's superfluous,

moments, intentionally, out

of sync with a larger reality...

I'm sprinting mentally,

yet I have not moved an

inch, in days, or inner- dimensionally.

My feet crack and bleed

under the weight of my

existence.

These slaves colored walls

contain every bit of my potential,

but not my existence...

even as my eyes look out the windows

at a future... I am not in.

That, thing, that policy

which makes me,

other than,

persistently

tethers me to a struggle,

battles with

invisible hands...

working tirelessly

to remove

those shield from my view

of hope,

which dangles on

the hollowed ineffectiveness

of the vote,

post-vote,

it, perpetually... blinds me,

so that I remain

unWoke,

and

so that I remain

complacent and comforted

with white whet

lies.

Gift yourself

, not with policy,

but in the fullness

in humanity,

then, only, then

can you ever be able,

to see... me...

and yes, I, still, want,

my, right, too, vote...

This poem was inspired after reading "How To Be An Antiracist", by Ibram X Kendi. We know "race" is a human construction, based/reliant on policies, laws, and (glued by) social mores. Here's how Kendi puts it:

"But for all of that life-shaping power, the race is a mirage, which doesn't lessen its force. We are what we see ourselves as, whether what they see exists or not. What people see in themselves and others has meaning and manifests itself in ideas and actions and policies, even if what they are seeing is an illusion. The race is a mirage but one that we do well to see..." Furthermore, as with him, I too, "identify as Black. Not because I believe Blackness or race, is a meaningful scientific category but because our society, our policies, our ideas, our histories, and our cultures have rendered race and made it matter."

"Ain't I Got A Vote?" is my existence and participation within this dance between White oppression and Black resistance. Sadly, my incarcerated status legitimizes, in an illegitimate way, according to the United States Constitution, my disenfranchisement from the vote, which is white supremacy reaction to maintain control with power, in power, through the power

over BIPOC lives.

Although it appears, that the power of voting does not matter; politicians abuse trust by not delivering on promises (to which they garner votes); and incarcerated individuals (as with some other BIPOC individuals) are prevented from exercising and participating in America's Democracy: the desire to vote, and have my voice heard, will never be diminished.

Ain't I Got A Vote? By E. Paris Whitfield