Guilt Privilege Power

[CRNDLSM]

You can never know how good I got it.
Kill or be killed.
That is all.

[vagabond]

You can never know how good I got it.
Kill or be killed.
That is all.

reading the first line i wanted to ask "why?".
the title also confuses me a little as i see nothing in the poem relating to privilege.
but.. though i can't quite connect the first and second line it reads powerful.

[CRNDLSM]

I used to not mind being called white. Now it's derogatory. It's a culture I'm lumped in for the color of my skin that I can't identify with on any other level. No such thing as white pride. But white guilt, white privelage, white power.

I just want to say take my life, take it, all people seem to want is to take lives.

[QDeathstar]

hmm, i'm not sure what you are trying to say. In the poem or in your explanation. White pride certainty exists. But, a lot of people pride themselves on their color. Its not a "white people" problem. People have always wanted to take lives; race is just another excuse.

[CRNDLSM]

I was trying to capture the emotion I felt reading the events of Charlottesville without obsessing over conspiracies. Short form is difficult.

[QDeathstar]

Oh, that's easy...

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein


The racists (KKK and Antifa) who went there both conducted an exercise in stupidity. If your sole focus in life is to protect monuments made for dead men who lost a war over 100 years ago or your sole focus is to antagonize idiots, well I feel like they're both running circles around idiot park.

I think your poem was written afraid.

[CRNDLSM]

Truly

[RiverNotch]

Privilege?

[CRNDLSM]

https://www.buzzfeed.com/michaelblackmon...ilege-9hu9

[The Four-Eyed Cat]

Glad this senseless debate isn't that prevalent where i'm from, although it's unfortunately slowly emerging...

[RiverNotch]

I meant that it's spelled "privilege". I know what it is, and I'm not white.

[milo]

Deleted some comments.
"Short" is considered a critical forum.
Please relate comments to poem

/mod

[CRNDLSM]

I meant that it's spelled "privilege". I know what it is, and I'm not white.

Thanks for the spelling correction, I clearly missed it twice, but you're 
Kind of proving my point.  What makes someone decide what color they are?  I can't exactly clarify, no, I'm Italian American, there is a stigma that instills fear in me due to the violence.  Jerry Seinfeld looks like one of the whitest people ever, but I'm sure most white supremacists hate him.  Where do albinos land?  History is spun and rewritten all the time, the first civil war was not about slavery, but at this rate, the second one probably will be.
That's why I obsess over conspiracies, I'd rather blame the 1 percent. 
The 1 percent.
The 1 percent.

[Wjames]

You can never know how good I got it. A white person talking about their "privilege"?
Kill or be killed.
That is all. I don't really get these last two lines. 

I can see from your comments in the thread you have a lot of ideas on this topic, but I struggle to glean anything about them from the poem. If I were you I would try to expand on this, it could be interesting. Maybe write a short essay on the topic and then hack it down into a poem.

I'm from Canada, so I have a little distance from all this Charlottesville stuff.

In my opinion, "privilege" has more to do with class/wealth than race. A black person born to wealthy parents probably has more "privilege" than a white person born to poor parents. Of course, racism exists and is no good. I'm also of Italian descent (and Scottish & Polish). My Italian grandpa (NoNo) moved to Canada as a kid in the 1930's, and certainly had a tough time during WWII and after. I personally don't identify with any real group of "white people", nor do most white people I know, but that doesn't mean that looking "white" doesn't have its subtle advantages.

[CRNDLSM]

Thanks for giving me a step back wjames, I'll probably take your suggestion, as much as I want to rant and defend the words, it's too much explanation for short form.