Reflection #4: Color Complex

I really enjoyed the poetry this week, it's hard to narrow down a favorite but "The Poem-The Mirage," could be it. I especially love the lines "Touch a poem and you touch escape," as well as "and poetry is the loser's prize. The consolation of one who sleeps the dreamless." I wonder if the poet is touching on how poetry is a land of its own for some, and the irony of how some of the greatest poets are poor and unknown. Their prize is the poetry yet it's still a loss to have so much to say and no platform or profit it in a society where platform and profit is everything.

But in terms of color complex, some authors are explicit with using color to show differences, while others seem to project their colored experience into their writing. This could be an assumption though, just based off having some background about the poets before reading their work. 

Let's examine the work. Ismael projects white as a gentle authority. Something to be admired "the blond blinding beauty," but still something that you respect and won't be frivolous with. "Let it sleep safely in its whiteness, without nonsense or language." Ismael only references the color, but my mind is subconsciously trained to associate color with race, which is where things get tricky. 

When reading Poetry and Protest we pick up the color complex as it relates to people which puts whites in respected authoritative roles, and Blacks operating on a level of inferiority. In the statement on the killing of Patrick Dorrismond for example, the white cop is the authority figure, the bounty hunter, and the black man is the lowlife. The use of racial slurs/derogatory statements combined with certain words in parenthesis infer to the audience color and language in general can have double meanings. In "History Lessons," Black is constantly associated with death, and in "Rose Colored City," the white girl appears pristine while there is a battle of power between the white and black men.

In "New Rules of The Road," however, color isn't explicitly expressed but we pick up on the tension it brings just with knowing the history of the Trayvon Martin case, and having the poster right before the poem. 

But even my sense of "feeling color" comes from what I've been taught about it - Black is pain, white is right. Black needs rules, white makes them. I wonder if it's possible to unlearn these connotations, or are they too embedded in us. I wonder only if colored poets battle with this color complex and what it's like on the other side. I'm interested in seeing writing about color complexes within the same race/across minorities and how that comes into play. A lot of times we only compare white to black when there's an entire rainbow out there that comes with stereotypes of its own.