Anonymous wants to highlight their positionality as an economically privileged and financially dependent disabled settler of colour with other significant intersections; Anonymous uses all the pronouns, but prefers “he/they”.
I’ll stand up to the white men
the rich men
the Old Boys and the new
start a magazine
and stop eating so many bloody sweets
I’ll do good, I’ll do good
— Hell, I’ll even recycle
I’ll do right.
I’ll get a job,
but like a good one that serves social justice
and not because of some ableist imperative
or out of condescension to those who have to work
in the “low-skills” sector
or
for a living.
I’ll do good
I’ll get a job
and not some parasitic saviour job
for a nonlegit organization
I’ll get a good, honest job
out of obligation
to serve society
and humankind
~ but not guilt.
~ And I won’t play the martyr either
no,
I’ll do something I like –
when I’m good ’n ready –
something that enriches my life
for my sake
…
too.
I’ll do good – you’ll see.
I’ll do my part.
I’ll tell my oil-rich grandparents
(*cough* longtime estranged)
to cease and desist
all operations
in the oil patch
on unceded
and stolen
lands.
I’ll tell them to give back what doesn’t belong to them
and spend the rest of their days
mending what they’ve damaged
because that is WHAT I BELIEVE!
~That is, after they’ve finished paying for my degree.
🙈 $☹$
I’ll do good.
I’ll give back the land I stole,
and now
cry
for the restitution
of the workers
and the people
and the Peoples
exploited,
enslaved
and displaced
fighting
for survival
fighting
for freedom,
the people
who make
our world
possible,
whose labour
fed,
clothed
and entertained me
while I was growing up and
pursuing my degree.
My degree, my degree.
Oh, when I’ve finished my degree.
I’ll join a movement
(*cough* Down with Racial Capitalism
and [insert appropriate movement here, with respect to the boundaries of said movement and requirements for membership]),
I’ll share my knowledge
and help to amplify the voices
that are ignored.
I’ll be a better person
I’ll re-educate myself
in an nonEurocentric way
to honour the legacies
of poc and Indigenous thinkers
past and present.
I’ll do good,
you can count on me
to share my tools
hold my fellow scholars accountable
to the wider world,
to ask
how can we take
what we’ve learned
and do good with it?
If I’m remembered for anything
let me be a great democratizer
with a small brass bust
in the Nose Creek Valley Museum.
~For grandiosity is not a mortal sin
and it’s only human
to dream
but
let other students aspire to academic fame
for ’tis not in my cards.
The activist life for me –
the scant and gritty
actually-doin’-stuff life
getting my hands dirty
moving and shaking.
– No ivory towers
can stop this long-haired Rapunzel.
Just wait on me,
I’ll do good.
I’ll break us all out
of the university,
abolish university
and grading
and chastise the armchair “active”?-ists
who stole from the people on the ground
and the philosophizing potatoes
who flat out didn’t give a shit
because they were too busy being verbose and elitist,
making their knowledge
inaccessible
to the people,
and preoccupied
with perpetuating
the lie
of one
white
centre.
The gatekeepers
who say,
“You’re not enough”
to the ones
who need acknowledgement most,
I’m coming for you!
– I’ll stop your games
– the jig is up!
I’ll do good
I’ll take to the master’s house
– my own house even –
with my bare hands
I’ll do good – I’ll do right –
But first – oh first –
I hope and strive and pray
🙏
for that
*A*.
