Dr. Nekima Levy Pounds, a civil rights attorney, community organizer, and law professor, spoke to Friends gathered in the wake of yet another killing of a man of color by police in Minneapolis. She spoke to us as the holders of privilege and authority. Here is a poem that arose out of this event.
VOICES
Speak to me truly
this time I tell you
I will hear my place
On top is killing
My place where I am safe
And you are not
For property returned undone
Undone of self respect
We cannot confiscate
Cannot conceal
Hands are up to silence
This murmur long and deep
Hands up, don't shoot
Hands up for a silent silence
In a room screaming
Say you're sorry!
Give it back!
It's not yours to take
Or give
Or live
All you got is time to listen
Open up your ears to hear
Your eyes to see
Your whole selfs got to change
You're a fragile egg shell
Holding seeds of tiny prisoners
In your hands
Who, instead of saving, you eat for breakfast next to the pigs and Irish potatoes
Whistling a tune for
Woe be gone days when me and mine had all there was
All the power
All the land
All the rights
All the freedom
Stolen from the flesh
Of our own righteousness.
Away away in Dixieland, there flows a river of blood wide and long, from South to North and West to East out into the desert growing in our hearts.
And now you know, have always known. And love flows in, and through, for you, my children, for you. For you are now and this is when we stop our hands a wringing and set the system free.
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