La negrita blanca (The little white Black girl)

La negrita blanca, or The little white Black girl

This poem tries to explain how the n-word is widely used in Puerto Rican society, often free from negative connotations, and the shock I received when I learned things were different here. You have been warned.

~

La negrita blanca

I don’t really like your enthusiasm for colored walls.

I now live in a land where I can’t even say nigger,

even though that’s who I’ve always been.

Torn like flesh from bone from a country

where black still reigns in even the lightest-skinned ones like me.

I see black in my people, in the food I eat,

in the air I breathe, in the soil I used to play with as a

child. The music that moves my bare feet to the beat of that drum,

played by hands of many shades of mother land.

Nigger, not demeaning, but endearing.

Nigger, not disrespectful, but full of love.

Take it as you will, I’m a nigger among niggers—centuries all

mixed up, our blood, our sweat, our tears, millions of fears,

Niggers—we are all.

I stepped into this foreign land where niggers there are none,

because it’s wrong, head-turning, battered, tarnished meaning,

meaning all gone.

And here I lay, broken-hearted in culture shock.

My pet name lies unmentionable, unintentionally oppressive on my lips.

My heart lays shattered in splintered pieces of

honey, sweetie, angel, nigger.

Don’t worry, grandpa. I’ll always be your little nigger.

(Just not when my feet are stomping on this country’s blessed earth.)

~

Cheers,

Char