I CAN ONLY INCLUDE
by: Luke Reece

Imagine the perfect day for a picnic.
Imagine 18 degrees Celsius,
65 Fahrenheit.

Why don’t we go on a picnic together?
Sure.
Let’s do it.

Well,
actually it looks like we weren’t the only ones who thought about going on a picnic.
It’s a big picnic, and everyone has been asked to bring something.

There is a list of what people are bringing,
and there are rules to what you can and cannot bring to this picnic:

We can bring salt but not pepper.
We can bring Pumpkin Spice Lattes but not Mauby.
We can bring Justin Timberlake but not Pharrell Williams.
We can bring responsibility but not accountability
freedom but not equality,
structure but not reform.
We can bring pearls but not the oysters that made them.

I cannot go to this picnic.
Can you?

There is no riddle here. Just a pattern.
And patterns are easy to follow,
whether you recognize them or not.

What are you bringing to the picnic?
What can you include on the list?

James Baldwin said “I don't know what most white people in this country feel, but I can only include what they feel from the state of their institutions."

Imagine this – Baldwin was going to the picnic too,
but he decided to stop,
before the park entrance,
and look at what all these white people were bringing to the damn picnic.

So
now we’re at the park where this picnic is happening,
and I can only include how these people feel, by what they’re bringing to the picnic.

I can only include the time I got called nigger on the way to the picnic.
I can only include the time only the Black people got tickets at the picnic
I can only include so much before I decide—
I don’t have to go to the fucking picnic.
WE actually don’t have to go to the fucking picnic.

It’s not 1865.

Imagine that.