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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsA Poetic Warning About Police Brutality in Ferguson and Elsewhere—From a Black Father to His Son
Albuquerque's poet laureate writes about dehumanization and killing of black people in the US."
The effect of lynching isnt to execute a black man, poet and journalist Hakim Bellamy tells me. The effect of lynching is to make a hundred other people watch, to send a message of oppression and intimidation: Be careful, this could be you.
The same is true, Bellamy believes, of police shootings and other brutality against black Americans."
*Bellamy is a radio journalist, poet laureate of Albuquerque and national slam poetry champion. He said when he heard about Michael Browns death at the hands of a policeman in Ferguson, Missouri he knew he wanted to write something to capture the frustration, anger and hopelessness that had been building after the senseless killings of Trayvon Martin, Oscar Grant and so many others."
*If you look at a lot of my work and youre like, man, we should all just end it tomorrow because it's not getting any betterIf that's what you read, youre reading it wrong, he said, laughing. Actually, the fact that people want to engage this work, that gives me hope. It shows the amazing capacity for the human heart to change and grow and feel. People are not running away from it, theyre running towards itespecially white, Anglo people here in New Mexico are like, 'I want to do this work, I want to hear stuff that challenges me because it reminds me that we have work to do. To me, thats encouraging. That is the bigger part [of my work]. Its not meant to make everybody go home and feel terrible, but its made to make people go, huh, that's right, thats still happening and we have a lot of work to do."
http://www.alternet.org/culture/poetic-warning-about-police-brutality-ferguson-and-elsewhere-black-father-his-son?page=0%2C0
Warpy
(110,744 posts)and all that needs saying.
"Son,
this is not cops and robbers
this is cowboys and Indians,
and the only way to not get shot in the back
is to dress like a cowboy. "
Oh, yes. This. So much.
Although it doesn't always work. Cops wonder where they stole the suit.
lsewpershad
(2,620 posts)"Know your place"