Skin

The Good Listening Project - Jenny Hegland - Skin poem.jpg

He had been thinking a lot about race over the past several months.

He’s a White man with two children: a 20-year-old biological son who is White, and an 18-year-old adopted daughter who is Black.

“Until recently, it was easy in our family, with our one Black child, to believe she had the same status in society. What’s happened over the past six months has made me realize that isn’t true and there’s nothing I can do to change it. It’s incredibly painful. I have been considering getting a Black Lives Matter tattoo on my arm. I really want to have something about where I stand on my skin, like her...something I can’t take away. As a White person, I’m scared to identify myself with a movement. That’s also why I want to do it. I’m not a person who broadcasts my opinions, but this isn’t a political opinion. It’s who I am.”

“This has been weighing on my heart and mind so heavily. I’m also struggling at work because I don’t get a clear message we’re committed to anti-racism work. As much as I love my job, I can only work for the VA if we’re taking an active stance and doing our part," he said.

Listener Poet Jenny Hegland

Veterans' Affairs Center for Development & Civic Engagement

August 2020

It is heart-wrenching to realize

I cannot protect my Black child from hate

or the present-day harm of history.

It is gut-wrenching to feel

the racist attitudes surfacing in the culture,

and within myself.

I am wrestling with what to do.

The weight is unwieldy;

the fear generations deep.

I can go to marches,

put signs in the yard,

but it’s not enough.

I need to have some skin in the game,

like her,

something that can never be taken away--

not to showcase an opinion or a stance,

but to reveal who I am

as a father.

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