Why cant you see me?
To everyone else eyes, I am a disappointment,
They look at me and they wonder why my mother didn’t do anything,
They go up to her, thinking they have the right to blame my mother for not raising me right,
The see my experience as a queer human, as her fault
They see my experience as a mix raced child, as her fault
They see my fight for human rights and animal rights as plague she set upon me
But what about me?
I am my mother’s child and so much more,
She has taught and shared with me her beliefs and experiences and
I have taken them and grown with my own
To everyone else I am a disappointment,
but to my mother I am her child and she loves me,
She loved me through my struggle of discovering my identity as queer person in a Christian community,
She loved me as I came to terms with the mental obstacles the world has for my friends and I,
Struggling to find a place and mechanism that allow us to thrive,
She listened to me as I discovered the inequalities of the world from a different point view,
And we discuss this over and over learning something new and agreeing to disagree in solidarity,
Because we were both raised with this responsibility to serve our community,
offering our voices to speak out for humanity, talking about our own experiences and listening to the experiences of the cultures around us.
So when I scream Black lives matter, queer lives matter, mental health matters,
climate change calls for human change, eat the rich, systemic racism, sexism, classism exists
They are not a plague that my mother bore me,
in fact they are not even all words my mother would say,
The only plague placed upon me and you is the structure of our society,
Because I am queer,
I recognise a history of when people like me were seen as criminals, predators,
shamed into hating themselves,
shamed into hiding underground to be themselves as well as protect themselves and though laws have change,
the stigma stays the same.
Because I am mixed raced,
I grew up with this knowledge that part of my family will always be treated unfairly because of white privilege,
privilege that I have because I ‘pass’ as white, that there were people who opposed my parents’ marriage just because they were of a different race,
that my mom’s dignity and life is always in danger because of ignorance and prejudice.
These are only two parts of my identity which are integral to me,
I didn’t choose to be different, but I am proud to be me
and you know
I am not alone and that my experiences are shared but also not definitive for everyone else in these communities
so stop blaming my mother for the disappointment you associate with me
my mother loves me …and so do I
By Jeandre Coetser
