The library is racist,
and Quick Becky asked how I know it.
Like the police and the hospital, it’s systemic.
Probably, the numbers would show it.
Kind Becky was incredulous,
“Were they racist to you?”
Were they racist to me?
Curious Becky’s question isn’t anything new.
She’s asking for facts, irrefutable.
She wants evidence, indisputable.
She loves the library,
“It’s a safe space.”
I love(d) the library
but I enter with a brave face.
No one’s burned a cross in effigy.
No one’s refused to serve “my kind.”
No one’s hurled a slur at me.
In fact, no one’s paid me any mind.
But she’s asking for facts, irrefutable.
She wants evidence, indisputable.
It’s in the way they ignore my work.
The way they prioritize the white author’s book.
It’s the way they spotlight white writers,
The way the rest of us are overlooked.
