Audre Lorde Knows What I Mean – 2021 in review - 5. Part Five: Fair Questions for Now

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Audre Lorde Knows What I Mean –

2021 in review

by AC Benus

“The [African American] says, ‘Now.’

Others say, ‘Never!’

The voice of responsible

Americans . . . we say, ‘Together.’”

—Lyndon Baines Johnson, ^[i]

May 30th, 1963

Part Five:

Social Justice II

XXVII.

Let’s play a game, shall we?—

Called Work Out the Color of Their Skin.

First, let’s look at N. B.—

Ten-year-old girl bullied at school

By another student.

She draws a picture of said bully;

Then bully’s parents call,

Demanding the child be arrested.

What did school and cops do?

Throw her in a room by herself,

Sans the girl’s mom,

And then proceed to bully

By interrogation.

Then they handcuff her; perp-walk her

For her classmates to see;

Take her to the County Jail

And lock her behind bars.

So, Surmise the Color of N. B.’s Skin.

What about Luke Stewart?—

Whose parents will always regret

Calling the cops to help

Locate the twenty-three-old.

For the cops sure found him,

Sleeping peacefully in his car.

What did the two cops do?—

One chokes him, trying to drag him

Out from behind the wheel,

While the other got in the car,

Tased the young man six times,

After punching the hell out of him,

Then killed with five bullets.

All within 60 seconds’ span

From first police assault

To Stewart’s last moments on Earth.

Luke’s parents know you can

Deduce the Color of their Son's Skin. [ii]

XXVIII.

A Ballade’s perfect refrain might go:

“What has happened to the Peace of long ago?”

And it seems a fair question, for now,

While we cast our glance about and wonder how

Things were ever let get this bad,

With the Republicans stealing all we had

Of equality’s fair momentum,

Replaced with brutalities ugly and dumb.

So the relevant refrain must go:

“What has happened to the Peace of long ago?”

XXIX.

No happy endings; no happy endings—

Matthew Rhodes – white cop

Louis Catalani – white cop

The killers of Luke Stewart

In Euclid, Ohio, in 2017 will never

Face the just punishment for cold-blooded

Killing because the Gop’s

‘Qualified Immunity’ ensures

Cold-blooded killers remain in

Uniform, just as

Matthew Rhodes – white cop

Louis Catalani – white cop

Continue to prowl the streets

Of Euclid, Ohio, to this day. [iii]

XXX.

Guess the color of Kyle Rittenhouse's judge

Who will not allow in his courtroom

For the protesters Kyle shot and killed on video

The decency of being referred to as “victims”

By the prosecution? White.

Guess the color of Ahmaud Arbery’s jury

In the trial of the men who lynched

Him with a shotgun on a Georgia road

And were not indicted for a crime

For the longest time? White. [iv]

XXXI.

Audre Lorde knows what I mean.

Decades ago now, she wrote a poem

About a 37-year-old cop standing in the blood

Of the 10-year-old he’d fatally shot

With the words “Die, you little motherfucker!”

Slutting his lips of vile hate; devilish malice.

Audre Lorde knows what I mean.

Decades ago now, she wrote a poem

About a jury of 11 whites intimidating the slight

Twelfth Black woman into acquitting the cop who’d

Killed a little boy because he was Black,

And boasted about it on the witness stand with vile hate.

And how that cop was free to do it again;

And how Lorde, as a Gay Woman, could expect

No support from the Black community – no love –

Simply because her partner was a white woman;

Because no victim of oppression, they said,

Is free of the taint of where they’re perceived to come from.

Audre Lorde knows what I mean.

Decades ago she penned a poem

About death and hatred; about prejudice on her

As a Gay person full of love, but fed to the teeth with anger

And the righteous Need to do what little one can

To put wrongs right. She wrote about me. [v]

XXXII.

A November Tanka

My day rises cold

with a strange light in the air;

nandina ripen

like blood splatter on the wind,

asking when clear light might shine. [vi]

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