Fragments On Police Killings, Humanity, and Poetry as Praxis/Testimony
(Or, Dear White People, Your N*gger Is Showing)
(partly shared originally via fb 5/28/2020)
***
“A policeman who shot down a ten year old in Queens
stood over the boy with his cop shoes in childish blood
and a voice said “Die you little motherfucker” and
there are tapes to prove it.”(excerpt from Audre Lorde’s 1978 piece, “Power”)
There are tapes to prove it.
I wish that were enough, but we all know that it’s not. Indictments are rare, convictions are unicorn material. For example, based on one report, only 4 officers have been convicted of murder for police-involved shootings since 2005… in a country where cops kill ~1000 people each year.
As I said in my 4/22/2020 PARTICULATES//Tulips piece in honor of Earth Day, this is a state-sanctioned, permitted deforestation of Black, Brown, and Indigenous lives:
“while our fossils fuel spring flowers.”
I’d like to one day complete/see, to paraphrase James Baldwin, an excavation of our experiences — a communion of our works of creative expression, resistance, solidarity, self-care, love, anger, affirmation, and praxis on this deforestation, this uprooting of our communities. How many poems, how many songs, how many paintings, how many murals, how many essays, how many photos, how many sculptures, how many exhibits, how many tapestries could be woven around and through and beneath and over…
…the space between white people and humanity (you know who/what I mean).
I’d like to see it mapped out, down to the very location where our lives are extinguished. Perhaps with geospatial overlays of the density of white people who live within walking distance, the number of “thoughts and prayers” white Christians sent up into the cloud, the number of hashtags white liberals retweeted, the number of likes white moderates disclosed.
I wonder what that map would look like.
I wonder how many poems, how many songs, how many paintings, how many murals, how many essays, how many photos, how many sculptures, how many exhibits…
how many tapestries…
“…give it a rest
they wanna see us living in stress /
so when your son turns 12
you better give him a vest /
instead of a ball
or he’ll never go to the basket /
his only shot will be the one
that closes the casket /…I’m doing this here
for them, that’s real /
’cause every time I see these kids
I think of Emmett
still.”(excerpt from my 2005 track, “Don’t Know Why”)
how many tapestries…
“cops walk the beat to it, seize to it
tell you freeze, put you on your knees
and proceed to beat to it /
pull heat to it, squeeze to it
breeze through it /
violate your rights
get stripes and walk free to it /…try to make it clear
so that everybody gets me /
the massacre is real
and I ain’t talkin’ ‘bout 50 /
the massacre is real
and I ain’t talkin’ ‘bout 50 /
41 for Amadou
and Sean got 50…”(excerpt from my 2006 track, “Theme Music”)
how many tapestries…
“nightmares unfold
while we slumber in our camas /
when the cops make stops
just to keep our palms up /
yeah, I guess they wanna make us Bhangra.”(excerpt from my 2009 track, “Commas”)
how many tapestries…
“so much Sauce
gets dripped in a stop
made from the same fruit
that the poplars drop.(excerpt from my 4/19/2020 piece, “ANTIBODIES//Shots”)
how many tapestries…
“they’ll rinse the paint from those streets
help wash your happy little hands
tell the world about your fear
and the happy ground on which you stand”(excerpt from my 5/9/2020 piece, AMERICA//Again)
how many tapestries…
“…this art is not a cover upon a white imaginary,
nor an ode to its contentment.
It is black. It is brown. It is caramel.
It is character,
embodied to the marrow.Surveilled, policed, painted.
Worn, danced, eaten.You feast upon this skin,
yet you’d starve within in it.”(excerpt from my 2/2020 piece, “SKIN//Content”)
how many tapestries…
“…the violence of sirens
the weaponized silence,
this country was built
on the backs of
white eyelids.”(excerpt from my 2016 piece, “WEIRD//Fruit”)
how many tapes…
***
So no, tapes are not enough.
We need you, dear white people, to human the fuck up. I’m not here for your excuses, defensiveness #WhiteFragility #WhiteTears, or bs counter-arguments/counternarrative shenanigans, nor your insipid legal insights when your peak academic/intellectual performance was a C+ on a Robert Frost paper in your high school American Literature class. Nor do I care to hear about the awesomeness of your new favorite Netflix series, “Colorblind Adventures in the Land of White Supremacy” — because a) you’re a fucking liar, and b) claiming to not see color is, wait for it… fucking racist.💯 (And I’m 2020% confident that MLK would slap the shit out of your “colorblind” ilk… with prayer, of course. So save your grossly misunderstood “judged not by the color of their skin…” rubbish for trash day — because you have missed the entirety of the point and you’re starting to smell like Amy Cooper’s apology mixed with teen spirit.)
To be clear, I’m not talking to individual white people, I’m talking to a collective. But if you think I’m talking to you individually and/or your reaction to this prosetry is defensiveness, well then, you have just outed yourself.🧐 (And if your response was/is, “damn… I see you… I feel you… I got you… facts… I’m here…,” or something along those lines, then know that we know who you are and recognize your show of solidarity in love, resistance, and humanity with us… now get your homies.)
I am not here to teach you how to be human. We are not here to teach you how to be human. But I’ll leave you with this from James Baldwin: “If I am not the nigger, and if it’s true that your invention reveals you, then who is the nigger? … Well, he’s unnecessary to me, so he must be necessary to you. I’m going to give you your problem back: You’re the nigger, baby, it isn’t me.”😟💯
Dear white people, your n*gger is showing. And it’s not a good look. Not on you, your parents, your children, your neighbors, your friends, your real estate agent, your pastor, your president, your unleashed dogs, or your future. And it is your responsibility to take “personal responsibility” to (re)discover your humanity. We’ll be here to help — provided that you can see us, of course.😉😁
#Racism20
#TheOriginalPandemic
#AintNoNewThing
#BlackLivesMatter
#PoetryisNotaLuxury
