written spring 2024
wealthy white woman with a 7-figure salary,
telling me that in the face of adversity,
all i need to do is self-advocate!!1!
honey, you've reached me far too late—
i may not be a lawyer like you,
but i've been self-advocating since i was eight.
don't tell a trans enby how to deal with gender discrimination
when yours is the occupation
that is stripping away my rights, one by one.
don't tell a crip not to trip up when a situation's unfair,
as if i haven't spent my life dealing with American healthcare.
don't tell a neurodivergent
that speakin' up's the way to go
as if i don't already know.
but look how poorly that always seems to go!
because, you see,
folk just don't respond to me
the same as they do to you
when i play in the sandbox of self-advocacy.
wealthy white woman, telling me about the system
and how it's set up against women
as if i didn't have to carry my walker down several stairs
in order to even get into the room and to these chairs.
i spent my youth as an able-bodied white woman.
i'm spending my adulthood as a disabled white enby.
i can tell you definitively
that the present is worse for me personally.
i get to be in pain,
i get to struggle with a walker or a cane,
i get to see nobody in positions of power
who look the same as me.
have you ever seen a professor in a wheelchair?
i didn't think so.
but i've definitely seen white women professing.
i'm in a little library surrounded by my peers,
feeling in this moment that not one of them hears
the problems in your talk about self-advocacy,
because none of them have lived the same life as me.
it's a privilege just to be in this space,
which discriminates students by colour, by race,
by gender, by age, by sexuality,
by physical and cognitive ability,
and frankly, our speaker doesn't seem to see
the privilege she holds in her petite body.
she was invited and welcomed here,
a platform to spread her pollyanna cheer,
because she has a published book and a fancy law degree,
but those opportunities are rare for folk like me.
don't wanna play Trauma Olympics,
no real point in trying to compare,
but looking at your face
through your foundation and your picture-perfect hair
while i'm sitting here in worn gym shoes
and feeling like shit
makes me want to fucking quit school right here and now.
you looked at some stats.
but is this what research is?
numbers, figures, black text on printer paper?
where did the humanity go?
where is the heart behind those pages?
so sitting here,
in a space that i struggled to enter
both literally and metaphorically,
surrounded by walls of books
written by people with little in common with me,
my back to rows of black computers
that cost more than i make in a month,
on a campus constructed long before i was conceived,
before the ADA protected people like me,
even despite my own white privilege,
even despite my institutional knowledge,
even despite my educated kin,
i can't help but the feel, wealthy white woman,
that you don’t actually have advice for me.