Cortney Lamar Charleston
Some write poetry with an eye towards beauty and their own experience, but it’s a different and very necessary kind of poet who arrives at the page with the intent to unsettle, to shake others from their sleep. From the instant I discovered him during my routine reading on the web, it was clear that Cortney Lamar Charleston is that other kind of writer – in his use of poetry both as art and as path to change, of everything from our relationships to the wider social fabric. In this time of violence against marginalized groups, it feels more important than ever to shed light on those artists who prod us awake to others’ pain, who keep us from rolling over and going back to sleep. I’m grateful to Cortney for the reminder, and for taking the time to do this interview – after just getting back from a retreat at Cave Canem, no less. – HLJ
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I came across “I’m Not a Racist” in One Throne and instantly appreciated the truth-telling in it, this calling out of this country’s racial reality which is frankly a situation most people in my own experience are unlikely to discuss in “polite conversation.”
I’m really happy that you found the poem! Interestingly, I think the unlikelihood of race ever being part of polite conversation is the conceptual foundation of the entire poem. Because people try to avoid the topic completely, it leads to a lot of “mental gymnastics” aimed at skirting around the subject, but language has evolved in such a way that different words, when strung together, can mean the same thing. I can say that I’d rather avoid going to certain neighborhoods because they’re “sketchy” – or, I can say I don’t want to go to that neighborhood because it’s full of poor people or black people, or something along those lines. Either way, whether it’s explicit or implied, the meaning is the same because the word “sketchy” does not have a clean history. I pay less attention to someone’s exact words than to the shadow those words cast on me as the listener or reader.
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I’M NOT A RACIST
I'm a realist: if I see a pack of hoods approaching, loitering,
acting a littering of public sidewalks, I simply
move to the other
side of the street, play it safe. I keep it on me at all times, for safety purposes.
In the event of open fire,
you'd be a hazard I told them when I, regrettably, couldn't
allow the lot of them into the party.
We're part of the same
political party, according to all the numbers I've seen.
When I shut the schools down, I was just
doing what must be done
to balance a city budget out of wack. When I put what
I found in his trunk on balance,
it was enough to tip the scale
towards a felony. I used to be a waiter, and they never
tipped very well in my experience.
While we were placing bets,
I noticed him tip his hand ever so slightly and there was
a ̶̶r̶a̶c̶e̶ face card in it. He didn't seem
like much of a bluffer, so I stood
my ground. On the grounds of merit – that's how I got
into Yale. I'm just not that into black
girls, personally. I mean, personally,
I don't SEE color. I'm so sorry, I really didn't see you there.
There they go, using that word again:
if they can say it, then why can't I?
I can't understand why everybody is so sensitive these days.
I admit, what I said sounded a little bit
insensitive, but believe me, I'm not
a racist. I'm a realist: if I see a pack of hoods approaching, loitering,
acting a littering of public sidewalks,
I simply move to the other side.
I keep it on me at all times, for purposes: in the event of a
hazard, open fire I told them, regrettably,
looking at the body splayed before me.