Today’s poem is Ethnic Arithmetic by Sara R. Burnett.

The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “One of the deeply harmful and insidious ways white supremacy wounds people is having them believe they are superior to (or less than), based merely on skin color. There’s a deep sadness in not seeing each other as whole human beings, in not recognizing the gift and potential beyond bureaucratic designations that confine us. Even here, I almost wrote “define us.” Identity is fraught and never more so than when we are reduced to a box to check on a census document, employment record, or audience survey.”

Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp