another shapeshifter living among the digital masses
  • on the necessity of speaking

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    December 7th, 2008cripchickwomen of color, writing/poetry

    dedicated to the SPEAK! fam, inspired by keith boykin’s “a poem for the millennium march” (must read) and “why do you speak?” by adele (coming out to you soon)

    i speak because
    overgeneralizing analogies
    silence my people
    used by folks promoting their struggle
    our lives
    our histories
    are reduced to lines in keynote speeches
    our bodies to checkmarks on your discriminatory policies
    our votes taken for granted and forgotten in your campaign
    and we should be thankful?
    where are you getting this from?

    this week another young black man was shot in the back by a cop
    they called him k-roc
    kenmara davis was supposed to graduate in may
    be a teacher
    now he’s dead
    this is in *our* town
    i didn’t see you at the vigil…

    i don’t believe a person of color sitting on tv reading the news is a victory
    how am i going to celebrate them when the stories they are telling
    criminalize us
    divide us
    allow us to be killed
    and then laughed at
    or hated?
    hell no

    i speak because
    i am more than that
    we are more than that

    i speak because eli says we are still wandering the streets, caps in hand
    & alice assures me that if we mapped the web of friendship,
    this is how we’d find each other

    i speak because sydette is asking how i stay tethered to community
    & mia says it is through a multi-issue politic that does not require us to sell ourselves short

    i speak because nadia is speaking
    naomi is speaking
    adele is speaking
    hillary is speaking
    lex is speaking
    moya is speaking
    mike is speaking
    ryan is speaking…

    our leaders will always claim
    to speak for us
    while ignoring us
    and we know
    the only way
    we will be heard
    is by typing into our speechboards
    signing fiercely
    opening our lips
    liberating our tongues
    speaking

    speaking…

 

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