"White Savior" Wins Undergrad Award in Racial Justice Writing Competition
“A powerful testimony to the racial injustices that have been and continue to be masked in our society.”-- Fabiola Mejia, guest judge
By Christina T. Gelin
White Savior
The roots of my ancestors are buried.
Hidden under the illusive acrylic paint
of lies and deceit.
The schoolmaster holding the brutal paintbrush,
creating the blinding masquerade.
The harsh strokes of the paintbrush
retell tales of history from the white eyes,
erasing any traces of my black roots.
They paint images of white lies,
of white men as saviors instead of oppressors.
This painting is one of comfort for the white man.
To see themselves as saviors is easier
than to face the ghastly truth
that they may have caused more harm than good.
There are dark colors underneath their perfected painting.
They cling to this false image of perfection,
they cannot let it go,
they cannot see a different painting,
for image means far greater than reality.
Hanging in the Presidential Appreciation room is
the painting of Abraham Lincoln.
They scream, “praise the white president for he brought
the Emancipation Proclamation that freed Blacks.”
The colors confuse me:
What is there to praise?
For he did not bring emancipation,
My ancestors remained unfree,
only with slightly looser shackles.
Surrounded by similar variations of this painting
everywhere I go.
Different colors,
different strokes,
but the same portrait of the white lies remains.
I have grown tired of this painting,
ripping each of the deeply embedded images
off the walls in my mind.
They do not belong there.
I am emancipating myself from the museum of white perspective.
I will find my roots,
And discover the beautiful colors
of ancestral creations and practices,
And the dark colors
of trauma, violence, and oppression.
These colors matter for they show,
not what the oppressor wants us to see,
but the genuine colors of history.
I will paint a new image,
the stories that they tried so hard to bury will be brought to light.
My painting will be unique,
it will not resemble the ones before it.
The difference:
this one’s honest.
Christina Gelin is a senior English major with a minor in Educational Studies. She enjoys writing poems that either offer a sense of healing from emotional trauma, or allow a reader to enter a different perspective. She wrote “White Savior” as one of the first pieces in an upcoming poetry collection that is focused on sharing the perspective of black students who attend PWIS. She is hoping to shed some light on the experiences that we face throughout our educational careers.
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