WRITTEN BY MARIA AMANI, MASTER’S STUDENT, ÅBO AKADEMI UNIVERSITY
This poem is motivated by my mentorship experience under a certain Social Exclusion’s alumni, and our discussions on institutional whiteness and navigating white normative spaces as professionals and racialized individuals in Finland. The poem was originally written as an assignment during my mentorship in the Spring of 2025.
Whiteness could be defined as an ongoing process where bodies are oriented towards a specific direction, ultimately dictating how bodies take up space, and what they are allowed to do in that space (Ahmed, 2007). Institutional whiteness is an existing normativity or a state of institutions where individuals who do not fulfill whiteness are left to learn to navigate it– or as Sara Ahmed (2012) in her book “On Being Included – Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life” describes it to “inhabit whiteness”- as a survival strategy. I would like to highlight that whiteness does not merely have to do with the color of one’s skin; rather, it is an existing norm or a state of how spaces are to be entered and operated in. I think of it as an invisible system, by which individuals portraying whiteness hold power over others. Sara Ahmed (2012 p.35) comments on whiteness arguing that whiteness tends to be visible to those who do not inhabit it (p.35).
This poem is my intent to describe the experience and the thought process of someone navigating whiteness in today’s world.
If navigating spaces is my portion, then I must be like a ship in the deep, dark waters of the ocean. I’m trying to distinguish between night and day, the social cues and the micro-aggressions in the break room.
I must navigate these waters of agreed social norms and expectations between approval and being “the diversity hire” that solves all your issues with anyone who doesn’t look like the people in this room.
If navigating spaces is my portion, then as a ship, I wonder where my lighthouse is. Where are the glimpses of conviction that encourage me to keep going till, I see the shores of change. This is a war on injustice, and every battleship needs its peers and allies. A break from inhabiting
a space that doesn’t belong to me.
If navigating spaces is my portion, it’s lonely out here at the sea. Like the Titanic I am hit with this unwritten rule of otherness.
What’s below the surface of your hostility?
Is it that the emotions bubbling under your own surface are not dealt with?
Is it that the sense of power you gain in this room intoxicates to the point where I am now left navigating your insecurities.
Like Maya, I will rise. I will soar on these currents that I navigate. The same currents that carried the conquistadores to a land they claimed theirs.
The same waters that witnessed the oppressed be carried into unfamiliar fields to fill them with blood, sweat, and tears for the sake of someone else’s dream to discover a new world. The same waters carry me as I navigate this day with its labels and quotas.
Maybe my ship was never meant to be in your race.
Maybe my ship has its own purpose at sea. A purpose outside of the boxes you intend to place it in.
Maybe my ship will compete in a category of its own where the sunset frames its way to the port.
A port where we all have our own place. A harbor where we all belong.
If navigating spaces is my portion, then the ship of self-righteousness has sailed. Color blindness is dead, and so is my will to entertain your perception of my existence. Journey with me! Journey with me to create a new route! Let us navigate to a better world.