Reflection #6: Differences and Voices

The readings this week left me in a world of thoughts and confusion but that's probably not a bad thing. When thinking about difference, some themes jumped at me: difference is superficial and difference can show superiority or inferiority.

In Snake Tongue, Carreno uses a cooperative and assertive voice to showcase that difference is superficial. I say this because the tone I pick up in when reading is like "I'm not any different just because we have differences. In fact these differences that you use to separate us aren't even real." This is the assertive voice but it was interesting to me that the poem started with "please," as if asking the reader to listen up and consider what the author has to say. The instruments that Carreno uses to support the claim of artificial difference is the comparisons of her reality vs. what society has deemed as reality for her. "I am not illegal and you don't have the right to label or decide."

I see this superficial difference again in "No Moon in L.A." Lee opens up with a Bible quote, which is the greatest instrument you can use in my opinion to show that you are no different or better than anyone else because of your status, job, lifestyle, beliefs etc. This is obvious throughout the poem as we are greeted by someone with a drug addiction in the beginning, but by the end we learn that the person with the addiction could've saved the soul of the "normal" person. I think the short lines and simple language are intentional to create balance between the brother and the speaker, which makes us look at them as equal beings as well.

On the other hand, difference was used to draw distinctions and a "you can't sit with us" line in other poems. Diggs uses a mocking, almost condescending voice to make the inferior become superior. "Popo, here’s your “black mammy” multi-platinum crowd-pleaser."
Generally when I think of mammy I think of a servant, but to me Diggs reads like "I know what you'll call me to make me feel bad about myself, but I'm going to flip these negative connotations on you."  She mixes culture, history, AAVE, creates new language, rap, rhythm and sound to separate herself from the white gaze and "they" become the "other."

Smith however, uses differences to illustrate how Blacks are made to feel less than in society. In Dear White America, the voice is actually fed-up with being different/inferior "We did not build your prisons (though we did & we fill them too). We did not ask to be part of your America (though are we not America? Her joints brittle & dragging a ripped gown through Oakland?). I can’t stand your ground. I am sick of calling your recklessness the law. Each night, I count my brothers." The instruments Smith uses to showcase how tired he is of these differences is to locate himself in space, above earth and America to look down on what has been going on throughout time to make Blacks appear to be inferior - from arriving on slave boats, to overshadowing our current state of oppression by a Buzzfeed article. Although it may look different in print, the shape or the poem being written in letter form helps deliver the message from Black Americans to America, and the fact that he even has to write this type of letter is an ironic way to show how different we are in this country. I also love the parentheses to separate the different voices of his experience in Black America/America itself.