WASHINGTON — An Atlanta student’s slam poem has been around for a while, but the recent spate of racially charged incidents has brought his frank talk about his own privilege to the fore.
Royce Mann, of Atlanta, wrote and performed the poem “White Boy Privilege” in May, but it’s been blowing up online since the recent shooting deaths in Baton Rouge and Minnesota, as well as the police killings in Dallas.
He won his school’s poetry competition with the poem, which takes an unflinching look at what he calls the privileges he was born with.
The poem begins with an apology to African-Americans, women and immigrants, and adds, “To be honest I’m scared of what it would be like if I wasn’t on the top rung.”
Other highlights:
- “I [expletive] love being privileged, and I’m not ready to give that away. I love it because I can say [expletive] and not one of you is attributing that to the fact that everyone of my skin color has a dirty mouth.”
- “When I see a police officer, I see someone who’s on my side.”
- His advice to his fellow white boys: “It’s time to act like a woman — to be strong and make a difference.”
- “I get that change is scary, but equality shouldn’t be.”
- “It’s time to take that ladder and turn it into a bridge.”
- “I know it wasn’t us eighth-grade white boys who created this system, but we profit from it every day.”
Mann told CBS News, “I’m just trying to be truthful about how I wouldn’t trade places with somebody, and I think a lot of people sometimes aren’t so truthful about that.”
Tuition at Royce’s school is $28,000 a year, Atlanta’s WGCL reports, and Mann acknowledges in the poem that “my parents’ salary” helps him to attend a school where he can achieve his dreams. He also argues in the poem that everyone should have that advantage: “Everyone should have the privileges that I have; in fact, they should be rights instead.”
He tells WGCL that his viral exposure is another example of the privilege he enjoys: “A white boy writes a four-minute poem and he goes viral, whereas a black kid can be out protesting for his rights and he gets arrested.”
His last piece of advice? “Try to be an ally,” he told CBS News; “do your share.”
The report from WGCL:
The full poem (Editor’s note: The poem contains explicit language.):
