UNSEASONED//Curators
I’ve noticed a trend. And I have little doubt that an analysis of data and algorithms would confirm what I imagine many of you suspect (expect, even), as well. So of course, I wrote about it.
***
Black pics,
White clicks.
Thank you, Frantz. And you too, Aime. As I was saying…
So, how about white writers on here stop using stock images of Black people to generate clicks/interest in their writing, stories, poems?
Certainly you can imagine another way to capture the vibe, tone, or topic of your work other than literally capitalizing on and exploiting Blackness?
Using our images to sell your words, our faces and bodies drawing in the white gaze, conditioned surveillance provoking thumb and index taps.
Trap.
Amusement.
No music.
The audacity…
some of you have
to then write from first person
as if you live beneath the weight
of your chosen images:
photo of a 20-year-old Black man in a beanie,
first-person poem written/narrated by a 65-year-old white man.
What?
Do you see me?
I see white people…
Colonizing our Black capital.
Fiends foraging for fragments of our dope
so they can cook it down
to unseasoned ornaments
to hang around headers like
rope.
Check the tape.
Masking…
white words with pics of full lips
and natural hair that required legislation
for us to wear without cuffs,
links to poems penned
by well-meaning whiteness witnessed
in the etiquettes of politeness
that borrow skin
and never return it.
Burn it.
Paste it on your piece
to portray yourselves learned,
covered in the ashes of raided tombs,
over-methylated wombs braiding resistance
into the dreams of our helixes
like beads on the heads of Serenas and Venuses.
ALL of this racket…
about proper decorum
while you pillage Blackness
and expect us to serve love.
Fuck you.
Curators…
Ontological guides of the internet
following the tracks of our fleeing ancestors,
Nova Scotia and Manchester —
Found: Black man with a necktie, smiling.
Found: Black man’s biceps and torso (no face).
Found: Black woman with an afro and glasses, reading.
Found: Black woman with a 3c and six-pack, yoga.
Found: light-skinned nigga with cornrows in a Ferrari, skirtin’.
Safari…
Scrolling screens with “your daily read” to see
versions of we on display for drive-by eyes
searching for substance amongst our stories,
“allies” or accomplices aspiring to accomplish this:
amplify the sweat of others —
Damn!
Your words must be freezing
to use our skins as their covers.
Click.
It feels warmer already.
