MARCO ANTONIO HUERTA
The Rusty Toque | Issue 12 | Poetry | June 30, 2017
My White Leftist FriendShe wrote to me last month. She’s asking “But we used to be friends,” and adding, “is there something that I or did that hurt or upset you?” “What are you talking about? We’re still friends.” I haven’t seen her since the election, though. She wasn’t the only one. I had a lot of friends calling for peace on social media upon the results. A lot of them were calling for solidarity. A lot of them were calling for acceptance. A lot of them thought the best way to go about it was wearing a safety pin. A lot of them were calling to refrain ourselves from giving into hatred and despair. Or the alternative version some of them were calling to fight hatred with love. Or what they really meant stop shaming white people just for being white. Oh, all the suffering rooted in the hidden injuries of class. I didn’t know what to feel exactly. And at the same time I felt lost among thousands of suggestions or sets of instructions about how to feel appropriately or what to think exactly. Oh, the spiritual crisis that the global competitive marketplace generates. This country went crazy by giving into paranoia after 9/11. This country has gone even crazier after the 11/9 results of 2016. I read my friend’s message and I can only feel that the violence has resurfaced with a new face and a new name. Now I feel the same fear I used to feel while living in northern Mexico, expecting an outburst, a confrontation between the cartels at any moment in 2008. I don’t think my white leftist friend would be able to understand if I tell her I can’t avoid feeling like expecting an outburst, a confrontation at any moment. |
MARCO ANTONIO HUERTA: Mexican. Bilingual writer, translator, and educator. Author of the poetry collections: La semana milagrosa (Conarte, 2006), Golden Boy (Letras de Pasto Verde, 2009), Hay un jardín (Tierra Adentro, 2009). Magnitud/e (Gusanos de la nada, 2012) is a poem-in-progress written together with Sara Uribe and translated into English by John Pluecker. His work has been published in several periodicals and anthologies in Mexico, Spain, Uruguay, and the United States. His work is focused the intersections between nonfiction, poetry, sexuality, nationality, and globalization. In 2017, he earned the degree of Master in Fine Arts in Writing after graduating from the University of California, San Diego. You can read part of his work at http://moteltampico.blogspot.com
