Darren Donate

Whitesplain

whitesplain

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Etymology
white + splain, after mansplain. 

Verb
whitesplain (third-person singular simple present whitesplains, present participle whitesplaining, simple past and past participle whitesplained)

1. 1. 1.      To explain to the Mexican: they haven’t had
               the real      authentic pozole,

                    the kind
               with bits of     brain, hominy.

   2. 2.      To explain to the Mexican: they haven’t picked
               their teeth clean, the cerebellum

               hanging from a finger nail like
               a true Aztec, Mestizo.          Lifting the

               bowl with both           hands, gulping
               down blood—coming to       gray matter,

               the chunks that     contemplate
               quantities of melanin—suddenly

               molting,     shedding the ivory of
                     your skin—becoming brown.

   3. 3.      To have a white man call you beaner. To have
               a white man tell you not to use that word.

  

Darren Donate is a first generation Mexican-American and visual poet. He previously obtained his MFA at the University of New Mexico. Darren is currently teaching high school and coaching wrestling in Tucson, Arizona. His work has been most recently featured in DIALOGIST and is forthcoming in Berkeley Poetry Review.

 

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