Entry for the WHPB anthology
This piece was written in Wounded Healer Poets’ Brigade. Written in response to the prompt “I always felt it was a little bit of a prison planet”
It’s called #Sayhername
Dear White People:
Say her name!! Remember Renée Nicole Good!!!
Wait. Hmmm? I shouldn’t say say her name??
Ohhh, mm hmm, that’s a phrase created by the black community in an attempt to draw attention to black women’s struggle against violence?
What struggle?
So if a victim is white, I’m supposed to just stay silent?
Listen, I don’t see color.
Ta’Kiya Young, you say?
Who is she?
Briana Taylor? No it’s not registering.
Oh, Sonia Massey!! Isn’t she on that sitcom? No, no, I got it, she’s a singer right?? Right???
No, that’s not right. At all.
Words are symbols. They matter.
So do not use the phrase Say Her Name in this instance, but do publicly mourn the murder of Renée Nicole Good.
A poet friend pointed out
that her name literally translates
to Reborn-Victory of the People-Good.
I’m gonna say it so you don’t miss this part: her murder was a tragedy, a good and loving human being, gunned down by the merciless hateful spike of fascism in the person of Jonathan Ross.
Yea, don’t forget his name, neither.
But listen to me: let your present outrage awaken in you awareness of the whole age we’re in.
The savaging of black and brown skin.
Say those names.
So many of us white people are unfazed by evil until it hits worshipers under their steeple. White people have a block about taking stock.
Well, the stakes couldn’t be higher, so here’s a keepsake: let your heart break. Every time.
Ok, sign petitions on dotted lines
but also check your alignment.
Start by listening to black brothers,
sisters and others.
Everybody needs love, everyone has a mother.
My melanin-challenged kin.
On this prison planet, if you’re not a warrior breaking chains, then you’re a prisoner, a guard or a warden.
Or you house one.
And maybe you’re not overtly racist, but that food on your table?
It smells like it came from hate, tater tots from race-baiting point blank shots.
It’s time.
It’s high time you show up as you are able, these are not the times for deaf dumb and blind, once and for all, be done with your numbing.
Some of us saw this coming.
8
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Entry for the WHPB anthology
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