bleaching

First it was Michael Jackson

then Latoya. Then Sammy Sosa

and now Lil Kim who overnight

became a white woman.

because

light skinned black folk get the better

jobs. Get to sit in the front

of the class. Get to laugh

with food in their mouths.

Look better in Maybeline foundation.

Are less threatening.

but

when I was groWING up, if you called

a person BLACK

you were begging to get

your a*s kicked. Later

being

black became more tolerable

but not less fearful.

Sometimes men

grew big and dark like Sonny Liston

who

used to knock men out who owed

money to the mob. But people always

called him "Mr. Liston". So

they poisoned him with

drugs and money.

TOLD-JA!

Reviews

[barleygirl]

First, your poem reminds me how so many white people cannot FATHOM how different it is to be black. I have a Motown celebration DVD from 30 years ago showing Michael Jackson performing before he lead doctors to mangle his face in search of something less "black" -- seeing this never fails to sadden me deeply becuz the "original" M.J. is so damn attractive in the flesh, not to mention his mind-blowing talent. As the story goes, he tried to obliterate his "blackness" . . . I don't know how true that might be . . . but we all have something like "blackness" that is a thorn in our asses, so you'd think some whites could be more open to trying to understand how this feels for blacks. I also have to warn you, "bleaching" has been hijacked by Trump & now we think about treating covid when we see a poem named "Bleaching" *wink! wink!* Fondly, Margie

[h d e rushin]

that's funny Margie....."Bleaching has taken on an entirely different connotation since April 23'rds
infamous press briefing (it's been 6 months as it's still a statement not of this world). But the fact that "bleaching" is still a "condition", it still has to be somehow diagnosed. I remember MJ in he old days of Motown, doing the moon walk and singing in that beautiful falsetto. Then the forces of society made him change his look. Then the constant scrutiny, and all the child molestation accusations, but mainly a camera in his face 24-7. He hated getting older. He fought it off like a wild animal. And then finally, he didn't want to live in this world past 50. Terryl Owens, the great football wide receiver and possible hall of famer said of his childhood "that he was tormented by always being called the "dark one". So light and dark is a philosophy you carry around with you until the day comes when it just doesn't matter. I mean, who really cares how dark or light skinned a black person is other than another black person....lol.
thank you love for your remarks. Your insight is always much appreciated.....dana

[redzone]

I find it ironic that some would find your words/message "cliche" Dana... also ironic but not unexpected, that what is not mentioned in these comments is the ugliness of the Black experience in america and in large parts of the world as well.... amerikka, where genocide and slavery has given rise to an extremely decadent, self serving and repulsive culture has historically developed, which includes not only how "light skinned" Blacks were more accepted into society, but how this "light skin" oft times has come from the rape of black girls and their children sold to increase the profitability of slave owners... while there are in Africa, lighter skinned peoples, it was here in the 'glorious history of our great nation' that race and racial distinction was magnified and even the term "race" was developed into an ideological weapon to defend and uphold slavery and then used to bring forth Jim Crow and lynchings.... in a class and "race" divided society, how could it not happen that people were pitted against each other??? that some Black folks would develop hatred for or towards those who "lived in the house", or welded the whip, or in many other ways wanted "in" on the system, some for survival and some because they liked their position... is it cliche to acknowledge that there are divisions among black folks or is it more that some people just don't like to see or understand reality of american history and where all this s**t has come from.... NO IT IS NOT IN OUR NATURE!!! it is the results of living in and comes from a society that has done great harm to humanity...

look, being white and a man, I cannot say I have experienced personally the contradictions of different shade of skin tones, but I have seen it played out with friends and during the Black liberation struggles of the 60's... as well as the contradictions between american born black folks and those who have come to this country from Africa more recently..... but my experiences have shown me over and over again, these skin tone divisions are the direct result of a revolting culture and society that at its very core has genocide and racism and must be over thrown if we are get beyond such divisions....

Dana, you pen a poem that is a wound that has not yet healed, it oozes with with the puss of a divided society... I find the challenge you pose of looking at all the manifestations and divisions, looking at them deeply to be discussed and (at least in my view) solutions to be found.... far from cliche, I find it refreshing....

[h d e rushin]

Dearest. my doctor 79, tenured, worldly respected and beloved, told me about a class of people here in Southeastern Michigan known as "Elites" within the Black American community. He went on about how they (the elites) got the best jobs, had the best assignments on those jobs, made more money, married richer men and went to only the best "Black" schools. He spoke of them as if they were an undiscovered tribe in the farthest reaches of the most obscure parts of the earth. "Why was this so", I asked him? "It was because they were mostly light skinned with that "good" hair", he said.. Clearly their very existence was to him, a noted urologist at a major cancer facility, a disability. Racism Baraka said, is when we are so disabled by our own likeness, that we start to hate that likeness. I must have missed this time of classism since no one I know personally suffers nor contemplates such division because of skin tone. But it is still alive and well, as you have to masterfully point out. But poetry is the process of invagination. A constant folding in so that the outer becomes the inner surface. Or what we witness is unusable to the inspiration that drives our magic thoughts. I fill redzone, that we've met somewhere before. Passed, perhaps, going up an escalator or caught eyes in a bookstore. Thanks for stopping by with your insight.....dana

[Davidgeo]

Your words are cliche.

You wanna be a leader? Lose the crutch.

[h d e rushin]

In all of my years i've never heard many poems recited on television. It's because poetry isn't two dimensional and can't be 'squeezed to fit'. It doesn't incorporate text, graphics, sound, video or hyperlinks. In fact it's the only original form of human expression next to grunting. And like any grunt, if you take the grumble from it, it becomes a word and quite beautiful. And yes, sometimes words ,being the force of language and communication that they are, have been used before. If that's the "cliche" your talking about, then I agree. It is. It was. Thanks for your opinion....dana

[Davidgeo]

I'm calling you cliche because you are playing off of pop culture ideology. I don't believe you are naive enough to take my "words" comment literally. I think you know better and I don't intellectually respect you because of things like that. To try that kind of BS in your response shows that you clearly have no respect towards others so don't expect it in return.

[emmajoy]

I've read and read, (and, yes, even other reviews) wanting to feel and understand but ~ I can't, Try as may, never will or would because of what and who I've been without any doing on my part, since birth. The flow and content of your words have so often stopped me short in whatever attitude entered with, previously near able to add a speck, an iota. But, this is the one that sets me reeling cos all i can add is nothing that you and I would know is only guesswork.. and that would be insulting. So wish otherwise, dana, my friend. But, i wanted to read..

[h d e rushin]

thank you love for your honesty. And sometimes 'meaning' can be incapacitating or at best, inversely proportional or obtrusively derived. But so what. We live to write other bad poems, lol. But to be honest, I never read any reviews before I write one, that's like kissing the picture of your high school sweetheart when your lover isn't home.. Yet I try to believe in the variations, the tempo, the predicate, the hypothesis, the investiture, the function. Then I pretend to be blind or laying under something heavy like a bookcase or a stack of tires and consider how the poem changes the process of my reasoning. No, I cant do it with all the poems here, only the one's I loved to read. Poetry isn't what the poet can ever do, but what the reader assumes as logically inconsequent. I love you so much....dana

[emmajoy]

Good morning from another day trying to shine. Usually I don't read other reviews but needed a wider understanding of how it is to not be in my skin.. Guess without going into a long exchange or whatever, the one thing that remains is showing respect.. the greatest respect and acceptance of whoever walks alongside..

[Robert Trakofler]

its all about the shades dana I was the drummer in a punk band, the bass player was this 6 foot 5 jamaican fellow with dreads down to his a*s and the singer/guitar player was a light skinned Australian half aboriginal fellow and me the white guy and rhythm section (of course) they used to call me boom chaka! I wanted to name the band "token White" but in truth both being foreigners they were a bit appalled at how differently they were treated, of course Charles the big guy had non of it and would jump at the first taste of racism and Berkeley being the suave fellow would always have to intervene with his polite snarky "aren't we the fool" attitude but me I always wore shades and if asked I would always say i haven't seen color in years... but thanks for letting me know. A piece of advice to a drunk racist in a bar at 2 am... never anger the drummer, we hit things for a living but it made for many an entertaining evening in my youth. Sonny may have taken the dive but Ali is the one that got knocked out

[h d e rushin]

great story Bad. And listening to your stories are sweetly antiseptic in this world of moral imperatives. But Ali would use 'color' against Sonny Liston and by doing so, made the darker skinned Sonny the Hydra of mythological American culture. But that was the sixties and although we thought of Ali's antics as 'funny' (which they were) it pointed to a more poisonous energy that was brewing in the Black community. That within ourselves, when it came to skin color, there was no equality. Not the science of division, mind you but how division by color created the instruments of success as well as the orthodoxy for such comparisons. In Al Jolson's "Wonder Bar" musical in 34 where he rode to heaven on a mule with pork chops and watermelons growing on trees, amongst hydrokinetic, floating children in blackface at his feet, it cemented this 'flammable notion of "color as division" to an entire population of former share-croppers that Heaven is for light skinned people and the darker ones go somewhere else.. And when Ali called himself 'beautiful" and "pretty", he meant skin color as > than his rolling, good looks and again, we believed him.....lol. Thank you for your comment my friend. I am blown away by both your knowledge and your wealth of information...Qualities that make you the perfect poet......dana

[John Alexander McFadyen]

There is a mix of anger, frustration and incredulity in this flowing, somewhat scatjing piece. I have to say bleeching sure beats me.

[Zeitgeist Manifesto]

Whoa. As soon as I saw the title, I knew you were coming in hot. You unpacked a lot in a brief way....racism, colorism and even internalised racism. It brings to mind, the stories of people who changed themselves to be moved in front of the camera. The thing that struck me in the end (no pun intended) was thinking about Liston being the enforcer and then...the urban legend of him having to take the dive for Ali to win the title. Maybe it was just urban legend but the cameras seemed to love Ali more. Anyways...the poem digs deep and places the feet of societal norms to the fire.

[h d e rushin]

yes my friend, you are so correct. Ali never really punched him when he won the title in 65. My dad went to his grave believing what you just mentioned but was too polite to say it out loud. Thanks for your insight my friend...dana

[Corset]

it's so completely uncool to be a Caucasian, male, and/or a lover of goodness, justice, or peace now a days, the word God is actually meant as anything evil , bloody, vampiric, or unchivalrous to woman of any skin color, black is the new black, and its got nothing to do with skin tone.

[h d e rushin]

i can see where your coming from love, But in the dictionary the word "fasten" has a few synonyms.
affix,
attach,
fix.
And everyone of them has a different connotation. "Black is more attached since the suggestion is that it is connected by a bond. It means, magnetically, that the evidence of it cannot be manipulated. History will ultimately hold me accountable for my horizontal spectrum of color blaming. But in 70's poetry where african american representation was rare , they too confronted (with great courage I might add) the so called "Black aesthetic". The aesthetic of worldly concerns and image making, with similar barren brushstrokes. They were searching for the right answers, not hunting for the the correct conclusions or what was the correct utterance. Your insight is never goes easy on me. And for this I thank you. dana

[Corset]

I know, but it shouldn't be, cause everyone loves the color black it makes our thick cellulite ridden thighs look amazing again, i wear it almost every day.

[Einstein Noodle]

little snarky in closing there H D ;) i use to curse me pale white, never will darken no matter what skin ... crazy huh!? all i ever accomplished was to get more spotted and sunburned :)))))))))))))))))) i went on a date with a young lady who had very dark skin ... in my college days .. i had to pick her up at her uncles apartment ... i knocked on the door and he answered and invited me in .. past the threshold was the living room packed with other uncles .. there must have been 15 .. all in their 30s and 40s and looking very large and black ... to say the least .. i was struck numb with intimidation .. :)))))))))))))))))))we went to a movie .. had a great time .. but i was too scared of having to pick her up again .. i never asked her out a second time .. life is full of added twists and turns isn't it?! i think you poem expresses a heritage of African Americans that is hard to shake .. not impossible .. these days if one wants something ... in the USA .. we have to want it enough to get it .. not impossible .. i was blessed with a lack of desire for money and power ... my inclination even as a small time Remodeling business owner/operator .. i would rather "throw things in" .. than charge extra .. i wasn't a very good business man :} i feel you in this my friend .. never want to miss your poetry .. right here at the Cafe'
E.

[h d e rushin]

great story Einstein. And I feel you about the intimidation thing. You never know what large black people are going to do...lol. You can assume that people are mostly the same whatever. But it's not true. Not today, at least, where people feel one way or another depending on where they live, what they drive to work, if they work, and if they don't how hastily do they have to get in the house. And yes, "life IS full of twists and turns...thanks for those kind remarks my friend....dana

[Einstein Noodle]

i love your stuff Dana ..as you well should know .. i had another such experience but i won't bore you with it now ... that kind of intimidation relentless and over decades is far more difficult to overcome than my very strong .. but brief experiences like that .. have you put a book together yet??

[jacob erin-cilberto]

Realities...yes, it is like this, was like this...has to stop...
Sonny was stopped...
The Darkest black is what the night is without a white moon to make it lighter...and it is damn Beautiful.
j.

[h d e rushin]

such beautiful words my friend....thanks dana