Mountain View - A Poem about White Privilege

I just finished two powerful days of equity and inclusion training with 56 of my colleagues in the North Kansas City School District. I have participated in several equity/diversity trainings and I have led numerous trainings on the topic. My dissertation is on this topic. It is my area of research. It is close to my heart. And yet I was transformed further after these honest conversations with people I hold dear. Let me just place this poem I wrote, right here. More to come on this.

Mountain View

Sitting so pristine in my whiteness at the top of the mountain
A mountain I didn't even have to climb
I get the luxury of feeling comfortably numb and I have permission not to cry
I'm looking at white faces reflecting back to me more whiteness
While my friends of color listen in, watch, calculate and consider our suitcases and how we unpack them

As we deconstruct our White privilege and all our dirty laundry
I wonder
My heart breaks open and I have been here before
Grappling with my white skin that I didn't even get to pick
And I am yearning for your trust, begging for your trust
Please trust me

You don't know it, but my heart aches, and loves and yearns
Hoping you know
I SEE YOU
Oh, I see YOU
You in all your beauty, anger, and hope

Please take my hand, and we will hike up that mountain together
And after the mountain, we will move mountains
And I will be your accomplice, friend, sister

~ Amy Casey 2018

Note - An ally will mostly engage in activism by standing with an individual or group in a marginalized community. An accomplice will focus more on dismantling the structures that oppress that individual or group—and such work will be directed by the stakeholders in the marginalized group.

https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/ally-or-accomplice-the-language-of-activism