Does [being Puerto Rican] mean you can’t be racist?*
Listen, all I’m saying is that I’ve been here too many times before I can’t count how many Puerto Ricans have said race doesn’t matter there I can’t count how many white Puerto Ricans I’ve known over the years all I’m saying is I’m tired of tres razas and all other forms of mestizaje bullshit that a flag doesn’t make us blood no matter how much red is spilled over it I am still a nigga in any context who has had to listen to J-Lo say the word nigga who has had to listen to De La Ghetto say the word nigga who has had listen to Fat Joe say the word nigga every time Terror Squad’s “Lean Back” comes on at a function I pray it is the censored version and even when it is I can still feel the echo of the word scraping at my ears all I’m saying is that in college a Dominican girl the same shade as me refused to believe I was Puerto Rican even after I named my dad’s birthplace of Ponce where negros carried makeshift drums into Barrio San Antón and played plenas so loud even elites had to upset Uncle Sam by dancing to them all I’m saying is the first time I felt seen was not through Héctor Lavoe the first time I felt seen was Maelo’s fro on Esto fue lo que trajo el barco was Tego’s fro on El abayarde and El subestimado was El Conde singing “Babaila” and “La abolición” his voice filled with skeletons pulled out of Ponce’s shores his whole body a tuning fork for every ghost not laid to proper rest does that answer the question?
* Adapted from a question Gayle King asked Miya Ponsetto in an interview for CBS This Morning.
Contributor Notes
Malcolm Friend is a poet originally from the Rainier Beach neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. He received his BA from Vanderbilt University and his MFA from the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of the chapbook mxd kd mixtape (Glass Poetry, 2017) and the full-length collection Our Bruises Kept Singing Purple (Inlandia Books, 2018), selected by Cynthia Arrieu-King as winner of the 2017 Hillary Gravendyk Prize. Together with JR Mahung he is a member of Black Plantains, an Afrocaribbean poetry collective.
