Adam Falkner, "The Definition of Privilege"Nathan and Davis had the wad of bills we stole from Davis's father's work coatSo when they led us down the block to hop in, we followed, because we were thirsty, and had no idea the darker skinned of us would only minutes later end up with their chests on the pavement, a stranger's hands scaling their waistlines and thighs while the lighter skinned of us would watch from the sidewalk, with our tongues pretzeled into knots like the barrels of cartoon rifles, and I was 9 years old.On the verge of beginning a 15-year obsession to prove I was not whatever it was that kept me off the pavement alongside Nathan and Davis.

First, by quitting classical piano lessons and growing my hair out.And studying the blues. Then traveling across continents with groups of quasi-guilty Christians to build schools in Peru, or community centers in Israel, or soccer fields in Mexico or wherever the hell, and then working up the nerve to rock matching track suits every day in the upper lot at Pine Ear high school. And basketball jerseys two sizes too big. And drinking 40s of Olde English malt liquor like Ice Cube, with kids who lived at Eagle Pt. and North Maple, and reciting Too Short verses to my crush at the bus stop.Where I eventually started smoking so much before school that I got suspended for vomiting in the trashcan during my 3rd period English class and had to go to summer school.Which I really used as an opportunity to distribute the first of many mixtapes in my very serious rap career, that I swore would be my ticket outta here, on which I used spoonfuls of words my mother did not understand until I finally, not somehow, landed back in school.

My teacher asked me to share the earliest memory I had of race and so I told her the story of Nathan and Davis and the stranger's hands and she asked me why whiteness made me so uncomfortable and I said, It doesn't. But then I said, Because I don't ever think about it. And she replied,Not having to think about something sounds like an amazing privilege.And then I started seeing kids who looked just like me everywhere, whose whole lives were bending into knots like the barrels of cartoon rifles just to prove they weren't whatever it was that kept me off the pavement when I was 9 years old. Which is to say, guilty for something they didn't do, which is to say,I never owned slaves. I’d never say the n-word, ever,Which is to say, invisible, I don't really have a race, which is to say, the option of silence.

Dylan Garity, “Friend Zone”The first time I ever danced with a girlshe leaned in close and asked me:why are your arms so stiff?Dancing with you is like dancing with a mannequin,if they made mannequins super bonyand with very sweaty palms.And to be fair, my palms were sweatyand simultaneously ice cold.I was, and continue to be, a miracle of physics.Who knew that adult hands could be supported by wriststhat a five-year-old or baby duck could easily snap?This may be part of why I’ve spent my teenage yearsabsolutely failing with women.In middle school, I would ask girlsI liked how much they weighedto see if I might weigh more.Numbers made me excited!I loved math!I used to think this meant everyone else loved math, too!In high school, I became intimate…with the friend zone.With one girl, I spent so many years in the friend zoneI didn't even realize I was in it.She was from Sweden,so I guess it was literally Stockholm syndrome.I would come over to her house and help her with calculusand I would comfort her and tell her how she was beautifulor how her boyfriend was a jerk or how integrals are related to derivatives.Eventually, I spent so much time in the friend zonethat I grew to think of it as some kindof magical home away from home, some lush forestfilled with unicorns and elves and puppiesnone of whom were getting any.I was on an adventure!Constantly uncovering new questions about this mystical place:Are you in the friend zone if they're with other people and NOT telling you about it?Are you in the friend zone if they tell you they could totally see marrying you in fifteen years?Why would you marry me in fifteen years,if in fifteen years I'll still be a virgin because you never slept with me?A few months after my first girlfriend and I broke up,I heard she lost her virginity to the next guy she dated.

At the time, I thought of this as a betrayal, not her choice.As if she owed me something.A newspaper column once defined the friend zone as follows:She discusses her love life with him and has the "audacity" to ask his advice on it. He performs favors for her. He does everything a boyfriend would do - but without the benefits."as if the only reason to be a good friendor a decent damn humanis if you get something in exchange.The problem is, when I startedthinking of myself as a savior,I ended up thinking of myselfas a savior with a salary.You put in your hours as a nice guyand love is just a living wagebut it’s not a transaction.Sex is not a handshake to seal some deal.That girl did not owe me anything.Last year, I heard that her home was broken intoin a neighborhood known for sexual assaults.Nothing happened to her.We all know the statistics.Your rapist is more likely to be someone you know.The boogie man, the stranger in the alley, is real,but not as real as we are.We all know the statistics.but we don't know how to accepthow easily we become part of the problem.You cannot kill a monsteruntil you are willing to see it in the mirror.Until you recognize its shape in your own skin.

Neil Hilborn, “Motown”Roger Guenveur Smith said,They like black music but they hate black people.They like black music but they hate black people.Growing up, I liked black music, and I did not know any black people. In the suburbs of Houston, your only black friends are Diana Ross, Sam Cook and Otis Redding, so here’s what I knew about black people:They liked to be in love. If someone could love them back, that was even better.They liked to do the twist. They liked Jesus just as much as Jesus liked them.They ended up on a lot of chain gangs, but at least it’s work, and at least you get to sing.

And they were waiting on some kind of change to come, but no one would tell me what that change was.So I knew that somewhere in Georgia, a man’s screaming, but no one’s holding a gun to his head, see, Lee Moses is in love, and his woman been running around on him, now,The bass is going into its fifth bar, and the guitars have already been playing for three, and the horn players are spitting on their valves and Lee’s got to tell ‘em, he’s got to let them know, his momma was right, she ain’t no kind woman, and the horns are screaming, now Lee’s screaming, now, this is what falling out of love sounds like!Ma Rainey said, White people love how the blues come out, but they don’t know how it got in there.High school was the first time I saw the Birmingham fire hoses, the first time “steal away to Jesus” meant anything more than quiet prayer.Now, when Sam’s having a party, everybody’s swinging it sounds like, thank God, let’s dance ‘cause the white people ain’t here yet, Sounds like tomorrow, I might get shot or arrested, so please, Mr. DJ, keep those records playing.I still sing along like no one ever died, like I can scrub away white guilt with a soft shoe shuffle butSam, you could’ve been singing about me. You could’ve been singing about my parents. I don’t know if my ancestors posed in some swamp in white robes with burning crossesSo tell me: can I sing about a chain gang if I’m the one holding the whip?If I do the twist in my kitchen, am I jumping Jim Crow?When I sing about strange fruit blowing in the wind, am I singing about my family tree?So I went home, not home to my white house on that white hill in St. Paul, home in Texas.I turned on the radio. Otis was still sitting on that dock in that bay. I cannot understand the pain that made the artist. This does not mean I can’t understand the art.So you know what I did? I wrote this poem.

Things got weird after my second rap music video. At school and at debate tournaments, people called me by my rap name instead of my real name. They still do that. Things got weirder when people started calling me a racist behind my back. I remember reading a comment on Facebook accusing me of “cultural appropriation” for making a song called “Going Hamburger”. Reading the YouTube comments on that one will provide some expert testimonials on how puberty has clubbed me like a baby seal. In all seriousness, how can I become a man in a world of damaged women? How can I justify being a “white” rapper when that adjective is still a necessary qualification? Three meditations on living a life without infringing on another; three poems about privilege. Adam Falkner’s “The Definition of Privilege”, Dylan Garity’s “Friend Zone”, and Neil Hilborn’s “Motown”.