 My name is Rachel Muse, for those who don't know me, I'm the Libraries Director. I'm so happy you're here to join us for tonight's event, which I'm really looking forward to. Tonight's program is part of a series of events we've been hosting at the library, thanks to the American Library Association's Libraries Transforming Communities grant. This grant is an effort to spark discussions in our community between diverse groups of people to better understand our differences and define some common ground. Our first event last week was a book discussion of the book of other Americans by Leilani, and we'll be capping off the series with a panel discussion next week from the Central Vermont Refugee Network to hear from some new Americans in our community who have come to Vermont as refugees and asylum seekers. But tonight's program is called The Value of Our Stories, and it's brought to us by the Vermont Humanities Council. Our guest tonight is Rajni Eddins. He's originally from Seattle and has been writing and performing poetry for a diverse audience for over 20 years, if I understand correctly, in Vermont for about 10 of those years. He's the author of two books of poetry, and his presentation tonight utilizes spoken word as a tool for engagement in conversations about race, culture, equity, and the richness to be found in each of our stories. Please join me in welcoming Rajni Waterbury. Thank you very much, Rachel. Good evening. Good evening. It's good to be here with all of you. Thank you for the introduction, Rachel. As was spoken, I am a poet. I have been writing and sharing my art probably for close to 30 years now. My mother was the founder of the first Black Writers Group in the Northwest in Seattle, Washington, known as the African American Writers Alliance. So I started performing with him as the youngest member at that age. So I've always been immersed in that culture of storytelling and sharing a poetry and artistic expression and creativity. My mother would often have me read her pieces back to her with feeling to make sure that we'd read life to the stories. That gave me a lot of love and appreciation for what you could do with words and how just with the intonation and the nuance of how you speak and engage with people, you can take people on journeys, maybe that they had not even foreseen themselves. So I've been here in Vermont now for about 12 years. It'll be 12 in March. My background is using spoken word as a tool to empower youth and community, dealt with space for conversations on the social construct of race, affirmation of people's identity and shared humanity. So I be about a little over two and a half years ago. I decided to compile about a 22-plus year span of my text to make a transition into full-time employment and sharing my history. Living in Vermont has been a challenging experience in some regards. Dealing with microaggressions and racism and the constant need to teach people, you know, space was pretty homogenous and doesn't have a lot of access to the greater diversity of the human family. So some of these pieces come from these experiences I've experienced here somewhere from when I was back home in Washington where I grew up as a child. So I'll be sharing a number of pieces from this text and just giving you a brief background about each piece. I want to hold space at the end of the sharing for if there's any questions or things that pique your interest that struck a chord with you or you have some interest in learning more about what the background was, definitely feel free to engage because I share for that purpose. I love to engage and share my work and it's more so for the response or the holding of space for people to let it resonate and see what it means to you personally too and how that can be a way for us learning and growing together. So the first poem I want to share with you this evening is called Middle Passage. This is a poem that I wrote probably when I was about 17 years old. For quite some time I wanted to write something to speak to the experiences of my African ancestors who were enslaved here whose labor was the impetus for the industrial revolution of this country and who have still yet to be fully recognized for their humanity and for their vital sacrifice. But it just seemed as a child it was something that was too big. Have you ever felt like that? Even if you want to express, I'm the one to do it. Will I mess it up or will I not do it justice? I was asked by a friend of mine at that time if I wanted to come and perform a piece for this event called the MAFA. MAFA means great tragedy or great calamity. At the time when people of African descent come together to remember and honor the ancestors who went through this great travail and tragedy and still honor their resiliency and our own so I felt like that was permission. Like that was an opportunity to say okay well I'm being asked to do it now so I guess I have to go ahead so that's kind of how this piece comes about. I'm going to ask each of you to rub your hands together like this. So my mother taught me what she learned from an indigenous elder. Rub your hands together like this and you feel that you want to send the energy my way. Someone was sharing with you. Sending that love and that positive energy. So I'll reciprocate. Middle passage. There should be oceans of tears There should be oceans of tears This ink is not my blood. What right have I to speak? What right have I to speak? Think my words the salty oblivion to swallow this globe. Submerging this continent's mother's one perfect tear for her children. There were children in that small cramped space giving birth in fetal position to stillborn cosmos, tiny infidels with mayhem as midwife, below deck, below death below breath was hope hidden in heartbeat rhythm and now sometimes I see our children are below deck into small cramped space but the wooden planks are blocks and stoops and streets but our heart beating hope tells me you don't have to live that metaphor for we are the lineage of stars and suns. Look at the sky and see your reflection forgetfulness would have a stinky oceans drunken but galaxies do live in the sea floor. No one can ever take away our B4. They sunk so that we saw they hung so that we saw they sunk and sung with tears in their lungs so that we saw this is not a metaphor this is not a metaphor. This ain't no metaphor, middle passage I think it's always important to start with that piece in particular because it's vital that we honor those who came before us who were shoulders we stand upon who we would not be here without so I always want to make that gesture in reverence whenever I begin because I see myself as the extension of my ancestors and my mother in particular really envied that and to me her upbringing so don't thank you for listening the next piece I want to share with you is called blackness this is a poem that was written not too long so that middle passage was 17, blackness was 18 and I just graduated from high school and began working at a school called TT Minor Elementary School. The majority of my life I've been engaged working with youth from elementary to academia. I should mention my mother was a foster parent over 70 children so I was always the older brother so that combination of being immersed in a community of self-expression and artists, storytellers playwrights, musicians and being the youngest and then in my own household being like the second in command the oldest boy, my mother's only birth child and having so many brothers and sisters whose stories you would never fully know never knowing what past trauma they came from that gave me a certain appreciation for the power of love and compassion in holding space for people's trauma and essentially all human beings need that sense of belonging and positive affirmation and kindness and tenderness consistently so I had probably something close to a doctorate by the time I graduated from high school because I had so many brothers and sisters from infant age to adolescent so when I first started working at TT Minor Elementary School there was a black girl there who had a white doll and she told me that she thought her doll was prettier than her she said her hair was ugly she thought her hair and her skin was ugly and I just remember really being angry and frustrated because I knew by then about that historical doll test and different attempts to impress upon black people in the world that our features were less than beautiful and that people of European descent were some type of ideal for human beings and so really stuck in my craw I wanted to write something to speak to her experience and to speak to experience of all black children who were subject to that and to speak to that common human experience of recognizing that every single one of us has something beautiful about us and we were made because we're meant to be this beautiful so this piece is called Blackness so if you've seen some love I'll play with you, Blackness Who am I when you see me who do you see Who am I when you see me what do you see reaching rays of blackness dance the speed of obsidian rhythmless oblivion mocking me grotesque dark breadth cant scream when body swing days be just like mistral's dancing a jig that eats a burning white blister hot that blood flows from day souls It ain't menstrual, but it streams down just a purdy tune Trip drops so sweetly white, it shamed the moon Now the sound will be white, but the blood be black Flow flood the mud to the desert smack It slips black hips and backs, too sweat Life's stressed to give death with its breath Trip job, and you are not shit You ain't hip-hop Hip-hop, the black blood blots Sploshed to the spike, being a blight Watered Snow White's desert appetite hashing this halo Unholy spectrum of a Sambo rainbow Take a swig of my nigger swagger Clay fleshed lacquered, blacker than sinned dark skin It'll get you tipsy, topsy Flip the corner up to be Rajni And you'll stir down the well of my memory Watching the ethos bubble in the frenzy Andies, echoes The evil villain with the heart of black Emerges from the darkness Heartless black Void, devoid, soil dirty, stupid, ugly And we're hip-hop This is bloody ground You smell the coppery, cloyon scent Soil black is my royal tint Hip-hop, I am a living urn The ashes of my ancestors are my innards Hip-hop, when I am nigh And I hold the stars I thank you for this black flesh that surrounds my being Nappy child, self-exiled Treasure the flesh that you're blessed in When I am nigh And I hold the stars I thank you for this black flesh that surrounds my being Nappy child, self-exiled Treasure the flesh that you're blessed in Words are so powerful in and of themselves But I feel like your spoken word is probably even more so Do you feel that way? Do you feel that people might not get all of it If they just read your poems? Well I feel like that in general with poetry I think that our voices give words life And deeper meanings and richer nuanced language And understandings and visual imagery That we'd be able to absorb or take in Or visualise and be present with as it's resonating Otherwise because there's so much music and language You know, like you can probably all account for People in your family who have a certain phrase Or a certain way they turn a phrase Or say something colorful You're like, oh I could read it off the page But when I hear it in this person's voice It resonates and it's a part of my story too So I feel like that's a richer way of telling story You can always read it for yourself and hear it in your head But I feel like that's why human beings have kind of had that Real age and memorial The person who gathers the people and preserves the stories And regales people and takes them on journeys Sensitizes the children's imagination and fires up that Brilliant element because there's something so powerful in it You know, that we have to draw from that potency You know, with this particular piece I think It always touches a personal part of me because I was a child who was fortunate enough to always be affirmed And being who I was by a mother who was Intentionally pearl black and in a manner Speaking to our rich history as the foundation of our human civilization And recognizing that that particular piece is glaringly missing in the education we're receiving And there's another slant that we have to protect ourselves from psychically Protect our children from psychically So just seeing that those ones who have not been protected are inoculated And the suffering that arises, you know, that when you convince a child to think ill of themselves That's why I want to use the musicality of my voice towards sensitizing people to that Suffering and how painful it is and to work in tandem as human beings Not as white or black people but as human beings to appreciate the fullness of our stories As human beings from Africa to the present So thank you for that question Yes, sir Paul, with that, on the national news, an 18-year-old writing back Do you envision the way those words are going to come out or are they They're just on pages and later you You work through how they become expressed Well, the way I write my process is I'm I'm writing and I wait to hear the next slide like I think when I turned 11 So when I first started writing pieces, I really firmly believed that I was transcribing Other people's stories like I was listening to ancestors and other spiritual Origins where I could Write it and I'd wait to hear and then what comes next and this comes next. Okay So by the time I read it wrote it asked the question Transcribed I would generally know the piece by heart and I think A combination of seeing so many of my community Elders share in a in various ways and the musicality of their language and The different variants in terms of how they express themselves and have presence in their own unique ways My mother priming me again with feeling to say things say her words back to her and me kind of having that Resistance though. I have to read this again, but also like I wonder what the story is going to be because this is a really good writer um I'd kind of unconsciously developed a palette of my own as far as expression So when I started writing I found out. Oh, I'm good at this Even though if I couldn't really necessarily vocalize what I was doing at first I already had kind of a knack for Question. Yeah, I think I'll share Maybe three or four more pieces come on make sure we have time to ask questions This next piece I want to share with you is called Why We Still Need Black History Month And uh, this is a piece that was written I'd say Maybe five years ago Five or six years ago I was working over at JJ Flynn Elementary School when I first moved here from Washington The first school I worked at was Integrated Arts Academy Then I was promoted to move to JJ Flynn as a as a para educator And I wound up working actually with my nephew. So it was totally kismet and One librarian who knew I was a poet and and was curious about my thoughts on the month Just reached out to me and she said No offense, but and I was like, okay. Where is this going to go? Never know What that's going to be followed by but she said I like I said, okay. She's curious about some message Yeah, what do you what's your question? And she said um Well, how do you feel about black history month? Is it Like too short a month. Do you think it should be all year? Do you think you really shouldn't be a thing? I mean kind of what you're you're feeling on it So this is kind of how this piece developed I need some love Why we still need black history month Don't be so fearful of being racist That it deludes your common sense Are so fearful of racism existing You become a hypocrite I wrote this on the off chance. There would be some black people Who love themselves enough to listen in the audience Are some white people who know black folk exist In more than convenient moments Are just some human folk who love truth and have enough sense to care about their roots The librarian asks me why do you think we still need black history month? For the same reason that texas call slavery unpaid internship Because the evil of ignorance and racism must be vigilantly opposed with truth love and sincere inclusion Because it was once negro history weak And for the children who daily see themselves through the lens of stereotypes And those who only know television as relationship to black people And people of the global majority For my daughters who are growing and will not be choked out by the diminishing of our value For the legacy of our people that makes american ideals a sought-for reality Rather than a cliche banality For you For your spirit and your conscience So it doesn't putrify In the delusion of denial and fear made religion Because black people must not become history Our story is a part of your story The beauty wonder triumphs and trials need to be known Some from the hilltops and mountain peaks Resounding in the valleys and grass plains Echoing down the alleyways and boulevards Because black red brown yellow are the colors of my true love's hair and the universe Because beauty and truth will not be contained Because these are our ancestors We owe them a debt of gratitude Because love will not be silenced Because teaching white supremacy is poison We are all still recovering Conditioned to tolerate it in small doses The human family must heal Soon this sickness will be vomited and all that will remain will be you Beautiful healthy free-minded you Think of it as your chance to celebrate the human family In preparation for making every day our celebration I think that's an important piece as well You know when I first learned about black history month I had already had a lot of supplementing of my own education because my mother Knew already what the lay of the land would be as far as how we were being taught about ourselves and kind of this White supremacist by default way of teaching that has kind of predominated in this country So just learning about the history of dr. Carter g woodson first started black history month when it was negro history week and the intention of all these different historical scholars and ancestors who work to Expand the narrative to appreciate the fullness of black people's contributions What's the more I think of it is just a sane approach. You don't learn about trees by just studying one twig or One branch or one leaf and say that's the whole tree. It's like now you have to start with the roots of something the seeds or something. So I'm definitely thankful for that learning and I always strive to impress Things that are meaningful in my poetry that can help be held space for in dialogue with adult groups like this and also for youth to have the opportunity to engage them as they're developing this vital Because there's so many elements they're inundated with that if they're not Cultivated in terms of in a way that respects their intelligence And appreciates the fullness of their humanity and gives them a myriad of different experiences to draw from And it kind of just repeats the process of having people be socialized to behave the same way So I think it's important to use art as a whole from for that How come so I think I'll share maybe two or three more pieces this next piece is called Advice for police it's actually the short-handed Tidal the full title is actually Advice for police in de-escalating potentially volatile situations without the use of deadly force That's some me some love y'all you got it Advice for police in de-escalating potentially volatile situations without the use of deadly force Pretend I'm white Pretend white means human Pretend white isn't silent and invisible Pretend you aren't pretending Pretend I live in your neighborhood Pretend I'm your mother's bridge partner your father's hunting buddy the paper boy from across the street Pretend when you see me you don't see an animal Pretend you don't believe I'm dangerous Pretend your jaw isn't clenched that your hands aren't sweating Pretend we are human beings Pretend you care about me Pretend I'm white Pretend I just shot up a church full of black people take me to Burger King pretend it's my way right away Pretend I'm white Pretend you would not put a knee on a child's back pretend your silence isn't a knee on my back Pretend you weren't trained to see my skin as a threat Pretend all lives matter to you that you don't see my life as the color of my skin Pretend it's not a full-time job to lie to yourself Pretend you're not pretending Pretend you can use a taser before a gun pretend you can use your body before a taser Pretend you can use your words before violence If I talk back pretend I'm white if I cut you out pretend I'm white if I threaten your life pretend I'm white if I cooperate pretend I'm white if I'm pregnant with three children pretend I'm white Pretend white is a euphemism for something like human Something like worthy of consideration Something like free If I have mental health issues pretend I'm white Pretend white means I have mental health issues pretend your gun is like a mirror Now turn the gun. I mean mirror toward yourself Pretend your gun is not a mirror pretend you are not afraid to face the mirror Pretend you know we are all reflections Pretend to mirror rice was a grown man Pretend you know both Jordans pretend Sandra Bland is still alive pretend white fragility doesn't cost people their lives Pretend you are more human than skin More spirit than badge Pretend I am your child Pretend you want us to live So I actually do To work with you more now and then we can hold space for a conversation because I think we have until about 7 30 So again, if there's anything that Speaks to you personally or that stands out. You have a question about definitely feel free to ask at that period or even in between This next piece is called charlina liles charlina liles was a woman who was killed in seattle washington She was pregnant at the time and with her children. She was known to have a history of mental health Difficulties and she was actually the one who initiated the call to the police and that call Ultimately resulted in her death where she was shot by the police and Not that larger woman maybe about five feet pretty petite But then again, it's not to me when I look at these things I see so much history in present day of the justification of The killing of black people, you know, about a hundred or so years ago You didn't even necessarily have to have an excuse Or you could use whatever excuse at the time was convenient to use now Because we're seemingly more civilized And so-called post-racial These are all supposed to be isolated incidents, but I could speak the litany speaks to how we're socialized collectively To perceive black people no matter the age or identity As monsters to associate blackness with that to be feared and to You know with the birth of a nation this these films that justify the stereotypes held by Many people of European descent to justify the mistreatment of black people It's that cognitive dissonance. So this is Kind of where this piece arrives at it's called charlina Lyles and her daughters will turn into wolves charlina Lyles and her daughters will turn into wolves The moon will howl back and the sun will be your undoing Emmett Till will come back as elephant man He will whistle lasciviously at white women and broad daylight and no harm will come to him Sandra Bland will stand around your bed staring hungrily Her gaze will change your heart to stone or if already stone Then the rest of you Jordan Davis will return You will meet him in the gas station parking lot in your dreams He will have just purchased cigarettes and a pack of gum and oh, yes His music will be playing very loudly Yes, it appears we are monsters Demons with terrible resilience and incredible strength We are coming for your children No handcuffs tasers or futuristic weaponry will forge your doom We are rock and roll r&b hip hop gyrating color fleet through your black and white tv screens It's too late Michael Jackson already made thriller The wretched negro demon rapists are dancing with your daughters We have already soiled the white house. It's brown now like the earth our clawed hands clambered out of We have the dark dignified audacity to breathe the white man's air unapologetically To look a white lady rightly eye unfazed To not stand for the hypocritical bullshit of white supremacy. Yes, the monsters are loose We are claiming our lives matter more than just on halloween The next time you wear a native american costume You will be scalped and hung by the flag you hold so dear The next time you wear black face Cap dancing in layers of burnt cork and grease to mock our monstrous plight It will become permanent and none of your lily white loved ones will recognize you You will be burned at the stake like only a true nigger or a faggot could be You will taste the human tears the blood behind these razor sharp teeth And suddenly the world will morph and you will truly see the monsters at the dinner table in your classroom And right beside you as you lay down to sleep Their red glowing eyes will surround you for knowing for simply knowing That we are and have always been human I think i'll share two more with you. Um This next piece is called cup of joe this is written During a class i was taking back in washington called The african continuum of ritual poetic drama and we used to go through these rituals where we would um go to different places in our minds and our consciousness and then Just kind of write stream of consciousness whatever came out and i wrote this piece at that time i must have been Let's say 19 or 20 And I read it and i said i'm never saying that out loud But then i i had a good bunch of friends My mother and i co-founded a group called the poetry experience that we actually host here as well And so we had a gathering at our home as we tended to do just to hold space for each other And so i said i'm going to share something with you guys now. Okay, i'm kind of sensitive about my stuff like Give me your uh Your opinion. What do you think and they said you should definitely share that i was like, okay Sometimes it takes a little encouragement for people to Give you that that boost to say You can spit it out But i think that's the important thing about writing and expressing yourself and expressing hard truths and things that are Going on in our heads and because with that courageous vulnerability I think that's other people the same permission to be honest about what their experience is and to learn from that vulnerable sharing of humanity in ways that can help to elevate us all and help us grow Hopefully outgrow a lot of troubling aspects This is called cup of joe sweet land of liberty Super sees the natural rights of my people to be free America home of the Land where my people branded labeled to be slaves america Can you spare some change? Or can you even spare the truth to help us on our way? america These people come from low-income housing Underprivileged and uneducated In dysfunctional surroundings such as these many times their hygiene suffers These niggas is dirty downright violent man and stupid as a block of wood Wood I wish a pecker would would come down my block. I'd pop him with a block for stop We should not have been in cut off his oxygen Now now mrs. Brown Please calm down. Let's not become irrational. Look at me when i'm talking to you. Let's not turn this into a race issue White people Having grown up in white families Have experienced all forms of racial bias Prejudice and inequality Qualifying them to address a press to people's we have most sensitive Besides they've been to raise their own kids black people are wires Everybody knows Jews are the most persecuted people in history All I need to do Is apply a cocoa butter to the young negro scalp for about three or five hundred years or so Aren't to the naps lay straight and the culture abates and the ass up and takes Her hair is so fun Can I touch your hair wavy curly nappy straight wavy curly nappy straight Waves shut up now tell me do you really want to love me forever? Oh, oh, oh Paula abdu was fine as hell man. Oh, you just like her cuz she likes you Well, we skin that they're niggas live. I don't even look at a white gax The suspect is black in his mid-life to early living if you see this man, please not Please do not If you see this man, please do not hesitate to avoid or avert eye contact at all costs Clutch your purse in our pocketbook and cross the street. We repeat this man is armed with consciousness Warning He may appear as a If alerted to the sad existence of racism white privilege, you may experience abrupt discomfort Insidiously interwoven with a sad topic of discussion in a panic. However You know where you want to yell or cry or scream out I say do it yell as loud as you can It doesn't exist I don't see color I see shapes and triangles and parallelograms I watch bt I'm not a racist Then when this vile corporate tries to put you up on game that due to the nature of racism In and of itself being a system of racial subjugation against non-whites in every area human relation Entertainment education labor politics law religion sex war war war and economics culminating in the mass dispossession and genocide of the indigenous natives Using this definition as a basis if you got white skin and whatnot and you profit from the psychosocial construct I ain't got no key. I ain't got no key. I can't Constantly jangle the lock open to feel myself freely Free myself to feel every time I get close to a lock book. I get white wash flutter but guilt Then I stop jangling a lot then the whispers come Be silent quiet rarely seen never heard. You don't want to hurt nobody's feelings Refrain abstain from saying them words words like white like black except when followed by in harmony Like racism genocide Holocaust Therefore remain acceptable and appearance and character and manner and demeanor Everybody knows a well-mannered black man is named by white people was a negro Because I said before I can't find the space to breathe comfortably in my soul I got too many people in my head I got black and white in my head to continue with and every time I sing my pain I feel like i'm dancing but the russian currents and streams running blood and tears got white full shoes tapping like some snappy snazzy Elevated music hip tunes to cruise to huh hip hop tunes to cruise to Music to live by music to die by music to drive by I see them bobbing their heads off beat exchanging pc combo and the cosmos and indigenous peoples at large over lattes Damn shame what happened to them colored folks It's the damn fine cup of joe I think I'll close with the title piece This is a poem that I was co-writing with a friend of mine Maybe about five or six years now it was around the summer that Trayvon Martin's trial was going on Zimmerman's trial was going on for the killing of Trayvon Martin and uh where he was acquitted for shooting this unarmed teenager on his way home because he felt that his hood made him seem threatening and even and I think I had wanted to write this with a friend because we saw the litany and when She learned that news and shared it with me. She was despondent. She said why even write anything You know, it's just gonna keep happening like what do we even do about this and I had to try to Assure her and console her and say no like we have these gifts as artists creators to be able to speak life into these things to hold people accountable to higher standard of humanity and I got off the phone like Wept in and this is kind of the piece that came out of it for Trayvon Mike Brown and the Countless Unnamed Lynching is not dead It's done in broad daylight Under the hot lights of media frenzy for black blood white guilt White fear and white acquittal Where brown boys are still expendable Michael vick should have had Zimmerman's lawyer Brown boys are worth less than black dogs Trayvon should have been a brown lab Maybe then we see more of a humane society's presence If poems can march in the streets overturned verdicts Bring corrupt police to justice if they can bring a boy back his life and a mother back her son A father back his boy returned bullets to a gun Unlose the lynch rope and unravel the knots from choked throats. We would not be choking on tears When do our lives become valuable in the eyes of the law? When does hate cease to be exonerated behind a badge and lighter skin? And God forbid you wear a hoodie in the rain while having black skin with skittles in your pocket You can taste the rainbow, but you can't taste freedom You can taste your own blood, but you can't taste the rainbow Diversity is white people's cold word for niggers You can taste the rainbow, but not if you're too dark The rainbow may come during the storm If you're too dark on a block in a hoodie and the skittles fall from your pocket You never taste the rainbow your killer has the right to stand his ground He may shoot you in the heart and America may relive it in sordid detail She is only reliving her nightmare. She dreams nightmares often open caskets ashes weighted limbs no coffins too His name is trey von martin say it renee davis khalif broder kory jones elijah mclean freddy gray pamela turner mercy matt tony mcday terence crutcher terence sterling dion k darin seals deandre joshua felando castiel alton sterling corn gains oscar grant the charleston nine mckinsey cochran jordan baker camani gray timothy stanbury sean bell sandra bland natasha mckinna shelly frail giavon mcday benzel hampton erin cambell rinnell lewis tyree woodson victor white jonathan farrell erick garner jon crawford easel ford keith vidal michael brown jordan davis kejean pal tamir rice jason harrison uzman zango kenja mcday chevez carter maria godinez eve smith louis rodriguez matthew palo amru diallo his name he has a name his name is i can't breathe his name is emetil his name his name his name you must remember his name james burr jr james burr jr you may whisper it in the wind you may hear it in your skin his name is guilty in his innocence freedom fighter martyr trouble maker his name macomex martin the king he has a name his name is black boy black listed black bard his name is black power black babies in the black market for green cash stolen life tied to a tree burnt at the stake his name probable cause veneer problem chalk outline white man's fear his name ear for souvenir his name black nigger boy fred hampton huy p newton mega evers his name saves lives mobilizes movements his name is watch for a black messiah bullet to the heart boy in jaws of wolf white girl called rape whistle too free head too high his name looked me in my eye his name must die gangster thug men is stereotype his name is rest like demon his name is taken to the iron bridge on main street his name his name's legs are pulled until the snack cracks stabbed hung shot burned ravaged by relic hunters his name is missing an identity scots girl boys the ski experiments david walker living breathing black manhood healing pagan no salvation his name is you free nigger to get over it kouta kente stolen african strange fruit stranger in a strange land in danger of deranged hands enemy of the state genetic center asphalt art bloody memory collateral damage white man's burden that happened so long ago chain gang wave slave chattel on the rack in the irons on the run wanted his name is arthur the cans that felt more this was than cotton his name is put your hands up spreader stop or i'll shoot his name is bang 41 shots a solid decor angela davis breakfast program black panther party for self defense his name is his name is he has a name his name is beaten severely urinated on chain by the ankles his name is dragged for three miles in the capitated anyone places to have to remain his name is missing an arm his name is crackhead war on drugs war on poverty scapegoat sacrificial lamb his name is kicked carcass convict criminal thief drug dealer victim seal a child's name will never breathe again his name has a mother his name is expendable sundown laws jim crowbars jim crowbars his name is racial profiling in court just call him profiling because this is not about race his name is marcus garvey frederick douglas ought to be wells no rights a white man is bound to respect his name has a title when he dies his name is mr mark wearer of the black hoodie walker of the home path wrong place wrong time wrong skin wrong crime his name is holder of the skittles his name her mother's his mother knows his name her tears fell in big boat letters down her cheeks his name is gone too soon his name is darky spook jigaboo sandbow his name is different too difficult to be pronounced by thin lips and forked tongues his name dies without justice triangle trade of littered bones his name is sunchild star fruit young gifted in black but you can call him nigger his name he has a name his name is the sun is rising his name is wake up because his name is mine the whole space for whatever's resonating with you I know I shared a lot of powerful emotional this room expression with you tonight so there are things that you have questions about or that you something that stuck out to you that you're curious about or it speaks to your story somehow definitely for welcome to engage or reach out I'd like to ask you a little bit about your writing process and it's your writing is extremely powerful and you're reading as we've already discussed I think even more so and you've been writing for your whole life how has it evolved over time how has it changed I think over time I've kind of learned more about the world and and gain more experiences personally to to see to broaden my lens and to and to understand more when I'm learning from different writers of the past what they were talking about kind of how it shows up in this world in different forms to have more of a through line historically so I think that I mean for instance that final piece is the title piece for Trayvon I couldn't have written as a teenager because I had to live a lot of different experiences and learn a lot of history to put together the understanding that oh this is a you can't call this isolated if it's there's never been a stopping point so I think that's more that the piece needs to do so I think yeah having more experiences personally with racism and and navigating this country as a person of African descent in spaces where people aren't necessarily taught to embrace the fullness of each other's humanity and knowing what that feels like up close and and then learning that a part of it was utilizing my craft as a way to alchemize it so I wouldn't internalize them to come sick or despondent or jaded I could still find kind of a way to alquedo that energy and put it to a place of prescient vital expression that can be used as a teaching tool and also as a cathartic assist for myself and to hold up a mirror to people and to society yeah to go along with that like I see how cathartic that can be to get these ideas on paper and to share them when I'm thinking about life in Vermont and you know you're encountering of microaggressions and and flat-out racism and how in that moment you process that how you deal with that I understand writing but writing might not be in the moment so I'm I have a lot of writing questions for you but for some reason here in this content I'm like how do you deal with those those moments where you encounter what we're talking about here and I have to deal with them as racially as I'm able I mean that's why I use my art as a as a way to express my frustration with these experiences and the fact that they still continue and that are there are younger people than me who experience them right now and I think I also do it to light a fire under people to say what are you going to do to transform it because if it's not just about me personally how I process it the the impetus behind it is holding space for encouraging you all to think critically about how you can help transform that dynamic and that consciousness and intentional and forthright ways and the way that speaks more to your agency around it so definitely it's always it's never fun to experience you're like okay I'm sure anybody can identify as a human being is what it feels like to be patronized or undermined or underestimated but yeah it's like that and you learn how to deal with it in the moment and I use my art as the as the way to like kind of take those things that I witness and put them into a place sometimes I choose to educate the person in the moment if it feels like a sincere opportunity I just see somebody who's just trying to get my gold or just pull my chain I kind of have to gauge what's going on so I can protect myself and know what's meaningful but fortunately I've put together my art in a way so that I can hold space intentionally so that's the way that's my agency so I I encourage and challenge you to think about what your way is to yes ma'am it sounds like growing up you obviously became very familiar with your mom's art and I'm curious if there's elements of your art or your process when you really feel you know your mom's influencer or presence definitely I mean I think in the in the spirit of my own song and in the being able to bring playfulness with words to the floor she's a master of that master storyteller like just fountain of wisdom just extremely conscious off the off the fly so I think a lot of those elements that just those kind of fireside chats that mom just like drop wisdom on me into the night I was always listening you know that was one thing about me as a child I was a very intentional listener and kind of set focus to pay attention to what my elders had to share with me so I think drawing that from her I'm able to embody that and carry that legacy for because that's why I always start by honoring her and people who came before because I know that I wouldn't be able to do what I do without that that cultivation and that positive affirmation of recognizing my brains and speaking to me understanding that I'm already intelligent I think the way you speak to people the way you speak to children when you honor their intelligence and you don't patronize them that that says a great deal about how they become the people they're growing into so I was fortunate to have a mother who always saw me as brilliant don't get no big head because it was the foul word the balance is there so can I ask what brought you to Vermont yeah initially I came out of her family my godmother was ill and so we came over to kind of help hold space for her healing and it kind of had to regroup and find our footing here I began working in the schools and learned that there was a great deal here that my art can speak to and then there were a lot of different experiences that I had here I learned that oh this is a necessary chapter here too because I had to learn how to be resilient and practice faith as a principal I think you never know really the principles you hold until you put in tight situations you don't know if you truly hold the principles you hold until it calls upon you to act and I've been called on to act on the lap here and so I feel like that that's something that's a vital part of my growth and development here as an artist and seeing how I can use this art as a way to serve youth and community and engage like here and hold space for touching people's hearts and minds and soul spirits in dynamic ways that challenge people to grow expand their narrative and appreciate a fuller sense of their own of each other's humanity to be courageously vulnerable yourselves and I think all that comes from modeling and being in space where if you're being pushed to be silent and you still remain vocal that exercises a certain muscle especially when it's coming from a place of love and appreciation for humanity and holding a higher standard for all people that can that will benefit you know youth who are here and yet unborn so it comes like a kind of holy aim a holy crusade to humanize and sensitize people and use artists and means so I'm I'm glad I came here Can you talk a little about the work that you've done with children and in particular have you written anything specifically for children? Yes, I've always worked with youth since as I said my mother was a foster parent so probably since age nine I've had a host of different experiences and then 18 on I actually even my in my late late teens I was called on to engage teachers on how to incorporate hip hop and spoken word as a part of their curriculum to make it more engaging for enhancement of literacy purposes and then as I got older people knew me for my gift and my way of engaging youth and being a warm person in community and holding space for positive connection and exploration of creativity and imagination so that's something that I've always done and take where's the number of hats now whether it's writing workshops or school assemblies or lectures or talks on my own experience how I came to art so where's the number of different hats but I always enjoy holding space for youth I actually have a children's book that I'm working on I have a series that I'm kind of co-writing with my daughter but the first release is going to be called A Love So Big that's about children and parents who can't see each other and kind of the fact that that love never goes anywhere as long as you stay appreciative and know that it's not about if it's about when Is your mom still in Washington state? No, we're here I'm actually her essential person so we live in Burlington Vermont I'm thinking of you just having your mom poetry back to her as a young child I teach language arts to students and I'm wondering if there's one bit of information from your mom that you hold onto to this day something that she shared with you about you know reciting and spoken word and something that you still remember from those younger days Definitely I think she kind of gave me the freedom to create and learn my way of delivering and she also encouraged me as I said through even saying her own pieces to say things with feeling so I knew when I was writing that was already a vital component it's like I can't come out here and just the roses are red I have to make sure that I speak language and to give it a certain energy and emotion so that people feel what I'm talking about and they can receive it that way so I think the ways and more than like even asking me to say things a certain way I think just exploration of being playful with language we would do that often so it wasn't even like something she necessarily had to coach it was like oh let's try this out and now you have to say it in this accent so it was just like developing that muscle of exploration making it a creative and fun activity that you don't always have to know you're growing what you're doing it's just enjoyable so I think having that freedom of expression to play with language really opened the doorway to me and by the way is that I'm still living Thank you so much Thank you so much Thank you Thank you in the dark now that it gets dark