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La Profesora's Pen

~ Regina Garcia's prose and poetic musings on culture, relationships, societal issues, and our connection to God

La Profesora's Pen

Tag Archives: Social Justice

Permanently Black

17 Thursday Sep 2020

Posted by Regina YC Garcia in Uncategorized

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Tags

#BlackThought, Social Injustice, Social Justice

Today
It’s haaaaaaaaaaaaard to be Black
Tomorrow
I pray it will be better
Yesterday (many years ago)
My ancestors, in this land
Were shackled, chained, fettered
Today, in this land
I can open doors
In many lofty rooms
Also, today, in this land
Sundown roadside stops
Too often spell Black doom
Yesterday
We fought a fight
And thought equality was won
Today
We watch stark videos
That prove the job’s not done
Yesterday
Ancestors cried
For life, liberty, and happiness
Today
We are charged to continue the fight
So we can finish
This mess

Tomorrow
Come dressed
In righteousness
No lies
No duress
Say less

Love more

Askance

I ask:

Why is it that I write best when in pain?
Then, when I come back to those words, I relive the guilt that I am here
While others no longer remain.
It’s as though I write in efforts to regain and retain
Precious lives that have slipped into eternal gain.

Shame answers:

Selfish, Foolish Pen. They are safe. Heaven was theirs to win.
Write most for those and yourself that you all might enter in…

Not Untouched

So evidently, we are not untouched. Injustices live here. My students told me, they who are young and full of promise, and now I have seen for myself… I am teacher, mother, aunt, friend, and I am angry.

Furious.

Sickened.

How much sense does a charge of resisting arrest make when there has been no other charge for arrest? How can you manufacture a situation which allows you to see what is clearly not there and still expect to be…

Justified?

No, indeed.

No indeed.

…than yourself

Reflect on that which is…

More…

Noble than yourself
Richer than yourself
Cleaner than yourself
Deeper than yourself
Fuller than yourself
Stronger than yourself
Rooted than yourself
Truer than yourself
Intuitive than yourself
Nurturing than yourself
Invested than yourself
Loving than yourself
Accepting than yourself
Accepting of yourself
Divine than yourself…

…while there is yet time.

Do this for yourself.
Edify. Study. Learn. Grow.
Become more like that which is
Reflection
Part of a healing, feeling
Remedy of Light

La Profesora’s Pen

Inheritance

17 Monday Aug 2020

Posted by Regina YC Garcia in Uncategorized

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Tags

Immigration, Social Justice

What manner of world is this
When we have stolen and dismissed
Greatness, for we believe
Only the heightened may achieve
And fruit that has grazed the ground
Along with those just beyond margins found
Should drink in acceptance without a sound
Oh wordless, voiceless
Beloved of God
Pushed deep into the hardened sod
Sprout and break
For if you can
You have the gifts
To heal this land
You have the strength
To restore a peace
You are filled with the genius
To bring relief
You are the mighty bearers of light
Carrying news
That brights the night
You may not remember
What Great God
Whispered in your ear
Before he dispatched your soul to your body
And sent you here
You are more
You are more
And when slams the door
Think on this
You bear pearls
Cultivated not for
Those who have it all
And believe they own the call
Your pearls are for the many souls
Who will lift up their weary eyes
And rejoice as hope unfolds

Written by Regina YC Garcia, 08/16/2020

And God Said…

18 Thursday Jun 2020

Posted by Regina YC Garcia in Uncategorized

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Tags

Birthing Revolution, Love, Misspoken, Social Justice, Starting Pains

You don’t have to speak my language for me to love you. You don’t have to worship as I do for me to love you. You don’t have to be my shade, racial mixture, ethnicity, nationality for me to love you. You don’t have to love as I love for me to love you. You don’t have to be like me or like mine for me to love you.

I just have to love you.

A Start…

I see you trying while we’re dying

Weaving back and forth between the phrases

Your mouth may have never felt compelled to form until now

Wanting to say the right thing

(It is a start)

But when it comes out

Your flesh struggles to separate the years of “no need” from the apologies of the new day

Words fumble and jumble, and the need to protect your fear slides in to lessen the impact of your attempts

As well as the wind it took to push it forward

Your message received, but the relief flees when

Your words are regurgitated in the mouths of those who have believed

That it was awkward, unenlightened, insincere…

Those who have anxiously waited to believe that your years of disdain and flawed perceptions had totally shifted

While they were dying for change even as they buried their dead

Between tears and fatigue, they dwell on what you said

Analyzed and sighed that you still “don’t get it”

I see you, though

(It’s a start)

Keep going, and

Listen to the small voice that you’ve avoided

The one that buckles you in guilt and shame

Lean into its presence

It will give you what to say

It will tell you what to do

It will keep you from walking away

(It is a start)

This conciliation is for us all

It has to happen lest we all tumble and fall

If that be the case, we shall do nothing

Except hit the wall

So keep going

Keep trying

Yea, as we fight to stop

All of our dying

On Moldy Minds and Mal-Intended Monuments…

10 Wednesday Jun 2020

Posted by Regina YC Garcia in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Change, Confederate Monuments, Racial Intimidation, Racism, Relics of Racism, Social Justice, Unity

Pitt County Confederate Soldier Monument located in front of the Pitt County Courthouse, Greenville, NC
Removal of a Confederate Monument in North Carolina

In Those Old Temples

I hear there is fear

Those who desire to stay

And even watch some be  slayed

From the comfort of their chairs

Saying there are “bigger fish to fry”

Than a rock, a piece of stone, let alone

Should anyone risk life, limb, or reputation

Trying to remove the bastions of our “Southern Nation” 

That repressive obsessive Confederation 

Never moving foot nor fingers nor pen to protest

In those old temples

Mouths form and rhetoric spills

Wrapped in ideas, overly pedantic and frantic

Expressing the fear

of what one word beyond the status quo will mean

Frightened by revolutionary freedom fighters and Tiki Torcher dreams

Glued to couches and computers focused on screens

And overly concerned about what this insistence means

And what friends will think from post, comment, or like

Lurking silently, watching the gory

 Existing in a land of double-minded glory

In stasis, hopefully never to be perceived as liberal revolutionary or racist

Sitting in those old temples

Afraid that the upheaval of the believers will create a confusion 

Based on the conclusion that a collusion of ideas 

Will tear down some peaceful salvation

But salvation cannot exist with justice

Especially if the justice to be had is not withheld from everyone-Just Us

In those old temples

There is a fate worse than death

It is the sacrifice of a brilliant afterlife

All because we couldn’t love each other enough to stomp out each other’s strife

So in a New Temple of Societal Sanctification

Fear and these manmade monuments must die

For in the words of my elders, “God can’t use no coward soldiers”

And we all have gifts enough to spare to make this world aware 

After the dust settles

In a New Temple…

These monuments must lift up

Reformed, Repurposed, Re-stationed

So that my God, creator of all mankind, can show us a new nation

In a New Temple…

Therefore I am charged to  walk in my calling, as you are in yours

Daughter of Griots and Healers

Born from empathic feelers

Down through generations 

From both those who received and offered degradation

In a New Temple…

We come

Prophets offering

Truth and pointing towards redemption

Whispering Incantations of inspiration

Rituals to rise

Pouring sweet libations

As we melt down Hate’s desperate cry

In a New Temple…

We moan a litany of love

Poured from our lips over

Monuments of stone

And rigid concrete minds

Those that force us into dark corners, all alone

In a New Temple…

 Those mausoleums in human form

 That were built and maintained from fear and formed to despise

Me, any of my brothers, my sisters, my family, my friends, mankind

Who have screamed out “I matter! We matter”

And wallowed in vain

Will finally feel a valued part of the land in which they remain

In our New Temple

We grind down ashen rock into into dust 

And then love it back together

Shaped in renewed mind and spirit

A picture of forever

In the New Temple

We dream it

We speak it

We walk it

We believe it

We protest it

We contest it

We pray for it

We live it

Go down, broken clay pot

And arise again

Something different

Something new

New legacy of freedom, justice, equality, unity

We protest until you do

We protest until you do

Regina YC Garcia

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