On Ryan, Diane, and Wishes

As I take a moment to reflect on the week, like I do every Friday, I think about how much I want my people to feel safe, seen, heard, and rested.

I think about Ryan Gainer and how he should still be here if law enforcement officers were taught that the intersection of race and ASD often leads to fatal action at the hands of those claiming to serve and protect. I think about how his family will never be settled. I fear for the next Black person on the spectrum who finds themselves dealing with the police.

I think about Dianne Abbott and how she should be able to speak truth to power without being silenced and diminished by people of pallor who can't fathom the reality that their niceties are neatly packaged hatred. I think about the calls for violence against her life led by a pale millionaire who will likely face no repercussions for his rhetoric.

I sit with all of this and wonder why this is part of the Black existence, this pervasive fear for our lives, livelihood, and safety. Questions pop into my head:

How does it feel to be carefree and never honestly think about your life constantly being on the line for just existing?

What would people of pallor do if they were looking at a lifetime of scrutiny and danger for doing everyday things they take for granted?

What if having a disability increased their chances of being harmed by society because of the melanin in their skin?

Would people of pallor tell the truth about their traumatic experiences at the hands of the so-called dominant class if their lives and livelihood were in danger because of the discomfort those truths caused?

I ask those questions and then check myself because I know these questions never arise for most people of pallor. I know they never put themselves in our shoes; even if they did, they'd complain about the fit.

I wish Black lives and safety weren't a novelty.

I wish we could rest with a deep, whole-body rest that allows our bodies and brains to cry, exhale, and cry some more until we feel less weary.

I wish for things I'll never see in my lifetime, but that doesn't mean I'll stop wishing.

I want my people to feel safe, seen, heard, and rested.

I know that's too much to ask for in a world fueled by white supremacy.

[Image description: Two images. The first picture is of a young Black man from California named Ryan Gainer. He can be seen smiling at the camera while standing in a parking lot. The second picture is of a Black woman named Diane Abbott. She was the first Black woman elected to the British Parliament. She is seen smiling at the camera.]

Image description: a quartet of images depicting a woman of pallor looking confused and contemplative. Around the woman's head is a series of algebraic and geometric equations floating in the ether. The images are accompanied by the caption, "People who quoted and misquoted the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on Monday, doing the math on how many days after MLK Day they have to wait before going back to being openly oppressive, anti-Black, and racist."

Some of y'all couldn't even make it 24 hours before y'all devolved back to your regular forms.

[Image description: a quartet of images depicting a woman of pallor looking confused and contemplative. Around the woman's head is a series of algebraic and geometric equations floating in the ether. The images are accompanied by the caption, "People who quoted and misquoted the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on Monday, doing the math on how many days after MLK Day they have to wait before going back to being openly oppressive, anti-Black, and racist."]

On Tamir's 21st Birthday

Image description: a picture of a 12-year-old Tamir Rice. He is smiling at the camera while throwing up a peace sign. The sun from a nearby window gives his soft brown skin a glow.

TW: discussion around police-involved shootings, murder, anti-Blackness, and racism.

Tamir Rice should be 21 years old today.

Tamir should be celebrating with friends and family, with a long weekend to do so.

But Tamir is not here today.

Tamir is not here today because, at the age of 12, he was murdered by a police officer who had been deemed emotionally unstable and unfit for duty by Independence, Ohio’s police department but lied about this to get a job with the Cleveland Police Department.

Tamir is not here today because he was murdered by a Cleveland police officer who never received a background check when he applied for the Cleveland Police Force.

Tamir’s family received no justice for his murder because a jury believed the officer who murdered Tamir was justified in his actions. After all, Tamir had an airsoft pistol that looked real, and there was no way the officer could know the difference.

Meanwhile, white mass shooters on murder sprees get lengthy negotiations, gentle trips to the police station and Burger King, and so much benefit of the doubt and so many excuses for their actions that it’s blatantly apparent whose lives don't matter.

Tamir should be celebrating the benchmark of adulthood.

But Tamir isn't with us today.

[Image description: a picture of a 12-year-old Tamir Rice. He is smiling at the camera while throwing up a peace sign. The sun from a nearby window gives his soft brown skin a glow.]

Black Poetry Tuesdays (August 22, 2023 Edition): "Sanctuary” by Donika Kelly

The week’s Black Poetry Tuesdays piece is from Donika Kelly. Donika Kelly is a Black American writer, poet, and Assistant Professor of English at the University of Iowa, specializing in poetry writing and gender studies in contemporary American literature. Kelly is the author of the chapbook Aviarium and the full-length poetry collections Bestiary and The Renunciations. Bestiary is the winner of the 2015 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, the 2017 Hurston/Wright Award for poetry, and the 2018 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and was longlisted for the National Book Award in 2016 and a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and a Publishing Triangle Award in 2017.

The following piece is called “Sanctuary.” In this piece, Kelly draws parallels between womanhood, the ocean, and its inhabitants, all strong yet mistreated and shackled by societal norms. The tones of liberation and the turn of phrase to act as if her words were fumbled when referring to the ocean and woman make this poem resonate on multiple levels.

Sanctuary

The tide pool crumples like a woman

into the smallest version of herself,

bleeding onto whatever touches her.

The ocean, I mean, not a woman, filled

with plastic lace, and closer to the vanishing

point, something brown breaks the surface—human,

maybe, a hand or foot or an island

of trash—but no, it’s just a garden of kelp.

A wild life.

This is a prayer like the sea

urchin is a prayer, like the sea

star is a prayer, like the otter and cucumber—

as if I know what prayer means.

I call this the difficulty of the non-believer,

or, put another way, waking, every morning, without a god.

How to understand, then, what deserves rescue

and what deserves to suffer.

Who.

Or should I say, what must

be sheltered and what abandoned.

Who.

I might ask you to imagine a young girl,

no older than ten but also no younger,

on a field trip to a rescue. Can you

see her? She is led to the gates that separate

the wounded sea lions from their home and the class.

How the girl wishes this measure of salvation for herself:

to claim her own barking voice, to revel

in her own scent and sleek brown body, her fingers

woven into the cyclone fence.

You can learn more about Donika here.

Black Poetry Tuesdays (August 8, 2023 Edition): "Bullet Points” by Jericho Brown

Trigger warning: anti-Blackness, hate crimes, murder.

The week’s Black Poetry Tuesdays piece is from Jericho Brown. Brown is a Black U.S. American poet, writer, and professor. Brown's first book, Please, won the American Book Award, and his second book, The New Testament, was named one of the best poetry books of the year by Library Journal and received the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. His third collection, The Tradition, won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and was a finalist for many awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award.

The following piece is called “Bullet Points.” In this piece, Brown focuses on the reality of police brutality in Black communities in the United States. This piece is partly in response to the suspicious deaths of multiple Black people while in police custody in 2018 and 2019, but also a dissertation on Black bodies murdered by the police with no justice and accountability. Jericho weaves a message to his Black friends and family, asking them to fight for justice if he dies in police custody because his demise will not be self-inflicted. “Bullet Points” is heavy, genuine, honest, and brutal and generates, sadly, familiar feelings of powerlessness in the face of constant danger, wearing a veil of public safety.

Bullet Points

I will not shoot myself

In the head, and I will not shoot myself

In the back, and I will not hang myself

With a trashbag, and if I do,

I promise you, I will not do it

In a police car while handcuffed

Or in the jail cell of a town

I only know the name of

Because I have to drive through it

To get home. Yes, I may be at risk,

But I promise you, I trust the maggots

Who live beneath the floorboards

Of my house to do what they must

To any carcass more than I trust

An officer of the law of the land

To shut my eyes like a man

Of God might, or to cover me with a sheet

So clean my mother could have used it

To tuck me in. When I kill me, I will

Do it the same way most Americans do,

I promise you: cigarette smoke

Or a piece of meat on which I choke

Or so broke I freeze

In one of these winters we keep

Calling worst. I promise if you hear

Of me dead anywhere near

A cop, then that cop killed me. He took

Me from us and left my body, which is,

No matter what we've been taught,

Greater than the settlement

A city can pay a mother to stop crying,

And more beautiful than the new bullet

Fished from the folds of my brain.

You can learn more about Jericho here.