What I've Learned

I’ve learned that writing and reading are two very different things. I’ve learned that it’s one thing to write for the sake of your own feelings, in this case to grapple with mourning; it’s another thing to open up to the world your sense of outrage without full ownership of what’s called the display copy and headlines.I wrote "An Elegy for Michael Brown" as an expression of grief, of mourning and of the deep pain required to keep going in spite of tragedy and injustice as the status quo. That is what I wrote. I’m a lover of letters, a teacher of English and a writer. I use tropes, motifs, symbols, profanity as artful expression and composite characters rather than actual individuals (spoiler alert: there is no actual apple-picking colleague with a 1-year old). I’ve learned that an intended expression of grief can be received as something entirely different or worse, an attack.The online magazine, Dame, published this piece of mine with the title, This is What it Means to Teach Your White, Privileged Children. My heart sank when I saw the headline. Such a headline would not only confuse, baffle, alarm and offend most readers but, worse, it distracted from my points. That an actual boy was dead, had bled for hours in the streets. That this was common. And because it is common, it means we can know about it and still exchange pleasantries of the everyday. I wrote creatively about being a black woman in spaces historically not open to me and what that can sometimes feel like when baby boys are dying in the street.I am deeply sorry for any misunderstanding my words may have caused. I hope that knowing the background of the story may help others understand and give pause.