They don't see me.
I'm white.
I fade into the sea of
Minnesota white.

Him they see.
His skin is dark like theirs.
They don't know what to make of him.
He walks through the fire
to his own rhythm,
not theirs.
His battle scars are different.
His battles are different.
The simple questions are complex in his world.
He's still trying to know who his mother was,
Who's his father.
What does it matter what race you are
when you don't know who you are?

His love has led him down a path of identity
with unpredictable twists.
He loves me.
I love him.
That's our context for navigating the perils
of race, identity, gender, sexuality, nationality.

They don't see me.
The bullets fly past me,
past Minnesota white.

"Hey you.
"I'm talkin' to the black man
"with the white lookin' hair.
"You tryin' to be white?
"You are an embarassment
"to your race.
"You are an embarassment
"to African Americans."

He faces them with words
carefully chosen,
words discovered through a lifetime of struggle
words his own battle scars have earned him.

"I know I'm not white.
"I'm not black either."

I know that to them these are fighting words
though he has no desire to fight.
He's trying to survive with dignity
on his own terms
just like they are.

I understand that their anger
is aimed at me,
at the history that makes me
Minnesota white,
at the history that means
no black man can take his humanity for granted.
But they don't fire at me.
Their bullets fly at him.

I feel like a coward.
Where can I stand?
How can I stop the bullets?
When they tear through him,
they tear through us,
they tear through the love and the life
we've built to make room for us.
And we all bleed.

And despite our striving for right
and all our love
there is no justice
there is no peace
and Minnesota black
and Minnesota white
and whatever of us is both or neither
all those caught in the cracks of tortured identity
we all bleed.