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      April 3, 2022One of the Good OnesShavahn Dorris-Jefferson

      To their surprise, the prince was a black man—fresh
      kicks, flat lips, tight crown coiled around his head.
      Still, they loved him. Though everything made it
       
      difficult. Wasn’t it an uncle who said they’re savages?
      And what about the stories of how they loot and kill
      then step over their dead? But thoughts of him
       
      gave them comfort. Something they could cling to
      when they weren’t clinging to their purses, something
      they could hold when they weren’t violently pulling
       
      their children away. But a prince is just a man, and a man
      is just an animal cloaked in skin. That’s what I tell my son
      when the prince wounds and is wounded. I cup his brown
       
      face in my hands and say, Baby, you don’t have to be perfect,
      which must be what they tell their sons when they storm
      the castle, when they try to take over the world.

      from Poets Respond

      Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson

      “The commentary, online and elsewhere, about the slap at the Oscars is troubling on many levels, but what has been most disturbing is when people suggest that Will Smith’s behavior somehow reflects badly on all black people. I read one post by a black man that said white people saw him as ‘one of the good ones,’ as if Smith took away white people’s ability to feel good about liking at least one of us. Even Kareem Abdul-Jabbar suggested that Smith’s actions were a ‘direct hit’ to the black community. It’s disheartening that many white people perpetuate the idea that black people are a monolith, but it’s even worse when black people buy into that narrative. Just recently, we’ve seen white people try to overthrow the government, and a white man just invaded another country for what seems like no reason at all. And yet we don’t say, ‘See what they did. That’s just how white people are.’ When white people behave badly, we don’t paint with such broad strokes, and we are much more forgiving.”

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