 I've got four pieces, three of them by me, little pieces. This first one is Nomo, how we came to speak. Nomo is an African god force who created humans, and it didn't work out the first time. So Nomo is, you know, OK, I'll do it again. Like the first ones were like out of clay, and I said, OK, I'll do it again. And the next ones were like woven, and that didn't work out. And so Nomo said, the word, I'll do it out of the word. So this is how we come to speak. Before a generation passed, we children of the third world knew how to take the gift of language, contort it crimson, and sew it to our teeth. How we mangle this tongue that needs unending translation, we require it to be a constantly changing chameleon, a hypnotist, a con man, a cheat. With words we manufacture demons who devour souls and erase memory. Look at how often we honor speech that can make us hate, that can cause us to deny our mothers, our brothers, our self. We have articulated a deadly weapon that subverts knowledge and betrays faith. So how now do we again learn to listen with more than ears, at once try to speak with more than tongue? How now do we put our tongues back in our mouths? This next one has become a necessary mantra of mine. It's by Lucille Clifton. And I really do mean that. It's like, get up in the morning, OK? Won't you celebrate with me? Won't you celebrate with me what I have shaped into a kind of life? I had no model, born in Babylon, both non-white and woman. What did I see to be except myself? I made it up. Here on this bridge between starshine and clay, my one hand holding tight, my other hand. Come, celebrate with me that every day something has tried to kill me and failed. And this is the part of the piece before the computer froze that I wrote for tonight, the other part of the piece you're not going to hear. It will take more than words to stem this tide, not enough to spit on a blazing fire, not enough to use a teacup to empty water from a seeking craft. True, mothers have been able to raise a car off of their compromised child. True, children have walked miles in snow to save their wounded parent. But this is not a time to plan on miracles, to depend on a messianic savior, to lift us out of this hell we have created through apathy or inattention, through greed or selfishness, through privilege or ignorance, that we not slide further back into voter suppression, that we not slide further back into patriarchy and misogyny, that we not use fear instead of reason when faced with religious bigotry, that we not pretend that racial fear is not a major part of this equation, that we understand it is not chicken little screaming about falling skies. It is to admit that taking America back has more to do with white frustration and terror than with going back to a better time, better before unions, better before OSHA protections, better before the environmental agency saved some wetlands, cleaned some rivers, reduced some smog. This is a time for ordinary people to do ordinary things in concert with conviction, to show up, to stand up, to speak out, to demand that we keep moving forward. And this last piece is called SNAP. I have one of my BC friends, that's before children, friends, those of you who have children now, there's very few before children, friends you have. And, you know, we are talking, you know, everybody's getting so depressed, right? And she's like, oh, no, it's gonna SNAP, just like that. She reminds me how when we were teens, we were unique rows and then SNAP, we were black and proud. Moving forward, claiming victories every day on our streets, in our schools, in our souls. We've always been an elastic people able to SNAP ourselves time and time again. Kat says she can feel it, smell it in the air, sweet and sour like it was then, only with more love this time and in a sharper, even more dangerous edge. Then, like now, things were seething. People were hungry and unjustly imprisoned and miseducated and drugged. But then, as civil rights long pull was bearing fruit, we SNAPPED into a revolutionary force. Climbed inside our ancestral court, SNAP made our music sing change, SNAP made our dances say now, SNAP locked arms and spirit, SNAP became a dark SNAP. Moving, SNAP tied a purpose, SNAP. We sharpened in the rhythms again, bringing out the drums, SNAP. Tightening up, even though we've been tossed by storm and cracked in the wind, we coming back together, SNAP. We got to SNAP. We got to just pull in and believe it and SNAP this mother back into place. I thank you.