 I just want to say how necessary this was for my spirit tonight. So thank y'all, that was beautiful. Before I begin, tangibly, right now in the city of Chicago, there's over 200 people who look like me who were tortured by a Chicago ex-officer named John Burge. Right now, there's a group of organizers trying to pass an ordinance to get those folks reparations, which includes not only money, but a center on the south side for mental health so they can deal with that torture that they faced, educational opportunities, and so on and so on. So right now, what we're trying to do very soon is get a hearing, and we need Rom and Manuel to sign on to give that hearing to the ordinance, which all the ornament have signed on to. I say this tonight because people who look like me, Rom has shown time and time again that he doesn't care about us, and so we need folks in his constituency and I don't judge you if you may have or have or will vote for him, but he needs to hear you call in and demand this ordinance, and so the numbers online to the mayor's office, you can call tonight, you can call tomorrow, you can call every day until we get that hearing. I'll just work. This poem is called, When Black Boys Are Killed on the West Side, the first responder is late. The first response isn't anger. There is no protest. No one to be in opposition of. No one to fight the uncrumpling of hollow. No black Paul Revere shouting, the Klan is coming, the Klan is coming. No curtain to peek through or rifle to grab. Cleaning up the blood, no rifle to grab. No ice bucket challenge, only bucket boys sounding another funeral possession. When a black boy is killed on the south side, there is no time to waste cleaning up the blood. When you are building trauma centers in your own living room, the windows drill shut, trying to repair, gone. When black boys are killed on the west side, there is still and always fuck the police. There is no time to waste finding who done it, your grandma will have her suspicions. She will suspect whom she always does, the devil, throw her hands up to God and whisper worship in her pot of greens she cooked for the repass. The teleprompter won't mention how she stacked memorials in her apron, won't call that activism. When black boys get killed on the west side, we won't blame the loose bootstrap. When America stole the boot, we won't disagree with being strapped. We will back in Mumia and Asada to guide the misdirected aim. When black boys get killed on the west side, there are no marching orders. Urgency doesn't call us to the trenches, summon us to gear up. We know this was never a war amongst ourselves, but we need to fight together against politicians who swipe our clinics, schools, jobs, police who take our taxes to kill our children. When black boys are killed on the west side, we twist it, martyr them, taking each other's lives before the world does, searching for the heaven our grandmas devote themselves to. When black boys are killed on the west side, we conjure up the shredding of kin, replenish the pantry ransacked, we plant seeds, a shared crop. When the black boys are killed on the west side, the first response is the forest trying to convince the axe it is wood. The pot is calling the kettle black. The pot is calling to say they are setting us on fire. The pot is suffocating. The pot is calling, screaming, stop! We are birthed, both burning.