Not only is Fiona Edwards-Akunesiobike an assistant professor in MacEwan University’s School of Social Work – she’s also cultivated skills and gained recognition in another area: poetry.
Edwards-Akunesiobike often draws on her experience in the field of social work when writing poems. “I am mostly inspired to write when I have a strong emotional connection to a topic,” she explains. “Issues of racial injustices and interlocking systems of oppression are common themes in social work that can trigger emotional responses.”
Recently, she’s published poems about racism and challenges faced by Black youth in New Sociology: Journal of Critical Praxis and Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry. Read them below.
My Life Matters: The Cost of Being a Black Youth
My heart raced as I stumbled upon an unfamiliar place,
Where I saw a multitude of youths from the same race.
Freely enjoying the privileges of their being,
Protected by the color of their skin,
Securely barricaded to keep them in.
These youths are free from the strain of societal pain
That breathes out the superiority of their reign.
Working to maintain a racial claim
Where Blackness is interpreted as insane,
And Whiteness occupies the entire human frame.
I fixed my gaze onto that unfamiliar place
Wondering how to step into this particular space,
To experience life, on the other side, of racial divide.
But suddenly, I found myself in a precarious position
Swimming alone in a bottomless ocean.
Suffocated by the confrontation of Whiteness
I gasp for air, as I slipped into darkness.
Conscious of the despair of my fear
I pleaded against my obstructed breath,
Just to escape an unthinkable death.
In great distress my world became still
As I lay hopelessly without my free will.
In the midst of a raging storm
I can’t find a safe place to run,
Not even from the darkened sun.
Why is it so hard to breathe?
I just want to breathe.
To make sense of my own being
In a world that recognizes the colour of my skin,
As something less than a human being.
As a Black youth, I am imprisoned
But the systems fail to listen.
Your silence sustains your invisible chain
That stops the circulation of blood to my brain,
There is something for you to gain.
Can I just breathe and live?
My parents have to believe,
Someday they will have to grieve,
That I may not outlive
This is hard to forgive.
Walk with me and you will learn
The many ways I often get burn.
Everywhere I turn,
Not sure I will return,
This is an everyday concern.
I am not to be feared and brutalized.
My identity should not be criminalized
Neither my experiences trivialized.
I hope you will soon realize
The many ways I have been dehumanized.
New Sociology: Journal of Critical Praxis
Open the Doors and Let Us Out: Escaping the Coloniality of Racism
Racism is our superior complex shadowIt follows us day and night.
In the day, it illuminates with stereotypes,
Prejudices, and racial discrimination.
At night, our superior complex shadow
Hides behind us
Until the bright lights of its Masters’ sirens
Render it visible.
They know us, target us and violate our rights
Just as they did our parents and grandparents.
Every assault, insult, injury and trauma
Produces sores on our racialized bodies and minds.
The sores are too numerous to count.
We wrestle with the assault, insult, injury and trauma
But to no avail
Our bodies are covered entirely with sores.
As Black youth, we hide behind our tears
The sores are still there.
We hide in the crowd yet we stand out
We cry out loud but our cries are faint
We use our eyes to tell an emotional story
No one cares to look at us.
The pain inflicted by our sores worsen
As they get reinjured
By our superior complex shadow.
Open the doors and let us in
The waiting room is empty
Our sores are too painful.
However, we are not welcomed in
We are a threat, our bodies and race are punitive.
They are not the shape and shade preferred
By the hegemonic power
That oversees our superior complex shadow.
We rid our body of its color
Straightened our hair,
Speak proper Eurocentric English,
Change our name and work hard
To make it half-way in
But the doors remain closed.
Every attempt to make it in
Causes more sores on our racialized body.
The scars are visible, they are permanent,
We can’t pretend they will go away
As they are constantly appearing and reappearing
When we are at school, on the street and even in our own backyard.
We will not ignore it’s not real for us
We live it every day, it is our present and future reality.
We have to break loose from our superior complex shadow
To create a new pathway to let ourselves out not in.
We are wounded, oppressed, marginalized and racialized.
Our bodies are sore, our minds are still conscious,
Our mouth remains the only part
Of our body that is uninjured.
We speak up but no one listens
We can’t silence our voices,
We speak up against structural and racial violence
Our voices are heard as one that is uncivilized.
We turn to social media to speak out against racism
From the clicking of the mouse
Our voices are heard
In spaces they are not allowed.
Together we join voices in unity
As we stand in solidarity
To deconstruct the stereotypes and prejudices
Perpetuated by our superior complex shadow.
We refuse to fight racism with racist mentality,
Instead we preach the beauty of Blackness
That has been lost in the ideologies
Of colonialism, racialization and racism.
There is no shame in owning our Blackness
Our skin colour is permanent, not to be compared with Whiteness.
Removing the power from you to define us
We opened doors to let ourselves out---not in.
Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry, Vol 12 (1), Summer 2020, pp 278-280
Our Superior Complex Shadow is Under a Microscope
Racism led to our ancestors' bodies being chainedAs animals that needed to be trained.
Purposely given a different name,
To prevent them from being reclaimed,
That's the beginning of the master's reign.
Superiority eventually attained
Inferiority severely constrained.
All these years of pain and suffering
Intensified by blatant violent policing.
In the wake of racial profiling
An outcry that has been lingering,
Leaving the Black community withering,
As it is constantly burying
Another soul stopped living.
The time has come for the Black community to be healed
But you are still stepping on our heels.
How can we reconcile your words?
When your actions cut like a sword
When we see another Black man gunned down
In front of his young Black sons
By the cops in his hometown
Black life matters and has always been
Yet we have to fight to be seen,
To get the systems to intervene.
With little help from within.
That calls attention to the scene
When a guilty verdict is hard to win,
Feeling like a blow to the chin.
Racism conceptualized as our ‘superior complex shadow’
Has reached a tipping point where it has to go.
Echoed by the voices of those who have come to know,
Demanded by those who can’t take more
Of its hundred years of painful sores.
Striking Black lives to its core
Visible now more than ever before.
We are in the midst of a slippery slope
For the many lives that have been choked.
Our superior complex shadow is under a microscope
A moment in history fueled by hope
That has now travelled from coast to coast,
Igniting a global community of hosts
Working to eradicate this uninvited ghost.
As we watched our superior complex shadow metamorphosize
From silence and ignorance to being heavily scrutinized.
For the tears that have been cried,
Eventually reaching every side.
Driven by actions to apologize
For the many lives that are dehumanized
Ostracized and put aside.
New Sociology: Journal of Critical Praxis