We Are Not Responsible

“We Are Not Responsible” focuses on systemic racism, or authoritative power is wielded against oppressed groups. This is an examination of the structures that perpetuate racism, rather than a poem about an individual experience of being discriminated against. Mullen uses the first-person plural pronouns “we” and “our” throughout the poem to clarify that the speaker is not one human being, but rather an entwined collection of people and systems. The speaker referred to as “we” is contrasted with the addressee of the poem, who is only referred to as “you.” The singular pronoun here represents one member of an oppressed group who occupies a position of lesser power. They are referred to in the singular because they do not have a privileged group and systems of power working in their favor like the “we” of the speaker.

The intended audience—“you”—can come from one of many different oppressed groups; however, visible difference is what first forms the basis of discrimination perpetuated by the systemic “we.” Mullen’s replacement of lost and stolen luggage with “relatives” in Line 1 is connected to the “handlers” who lose the audience’s “luggage” (Line 11). Generational trauma experienced by Black Americans is having “relatives” (Line 1), often not-too-distant, whose lives were lost in the slave trade, and having relatives who were stolen as if they were merely possessions.