Skye Jackson: “I was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, where the events of this poem take place. One damp Mardi Gras night, two carousing white women approached me—and they asked me if they could touch my hair. In that moment, I felt like an object of fascination to them … almost like one of the brightly colored beads around their necks, thrown from a garish float. That night, I wrote this poem in response to the sense of horror I felt in that moment and in memory of my ancestors who would not have been given the privilege to refuse their touch.” (web)
Skye Jackson: “One spring afternoon, not too long ago, I was in the business of selling Black bodies. These bodies, porcelain spoon-rest mammies, are ugly remnants of our nation’s antebellum past. As a Black woman working in a tourist gift shop in the French Quarter of New Orleans, I often thought long and hard about the things we must sometimes do in order to survive in a racist and capitalistic society. This poem depicts my revulsion at my own participation in this twisted system—so insidious that it often demands we sell our very selves in order to survive it.” (web)
Skye Jackson was the guest on Rattlecast #73! Watch it here …
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