#SplitThisRock2018 Sessions: Race, Identity & Racial Justice

Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness 2018 invites poets, writers, activists, and dreamers to Washington, DC for three days of poetry, community building, and creative transformation. The festival features readings, workshops, panel discussions, youth programming, parties, activism—opportunities to speak out for justice, build connection and community, and celebrate the many ways poetry can act as an agent for social change.

On-site registration is available every day during the festival at the festival hub: National Housing Center, 1201 15th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20005. A sliding scale of fees is available for full registration, beginning at $200. Student registration (with ID) is $75. One day passes are $85. Two-day passes are $170. 

Full festival schedule with session descriptions is available on the website. The Festival Mobile App is Live! Download the free app  for iOS and Android today for easy access to the schedule, session descriptions, presenter bios, and more! Just search your app store for Split This Rock. 

We are pleased to present a selection of sessions on the themes related to race, identity, and racial justice.

Shifting & Showing Cultures: A QTPOC Poetics Ritual (Panel)
Presenters: Kay Ulanday Barrett, Sonia Guiñansaca, Muriel Leung, Rajiv Mohabir,
Alan Pelaez
Thursday, April 19, 3:30-5 pm
American Association of University Women Room 1

The Poet as Parent: Inoculating For and Against the World (Reading)

Presenters: Mario Chard, Camille T. Dungy, Erika Meitner, David Thacker
Thursday, April 19, 3:30-5 pm
Charles Sumner School Museum & Archives Memorial Hall

Robots Speak Back!: Asian American Speculative Poetry Reading (Reading)
Presenters: Neil Aitken, Ching-In Chen, Rachelle Cruz, Sally Wen Mao, Lo Kwa Mei-en, Noel Mariano, Margaret Rhee
Friday, April 20, 11 am - 12:30 pm
National Housing Center Room B

This is a Love Story To Me and My People (Workshop)
Presenter: Tatiana Figueroa Ramirez
Friday, April 20, 11 am - 12:30 pm
Charles Sumner School Museum & Archives Conference Room

Walking Tour: The Rise of DC's Black Intelligentsia (The Dunbars in LeDroit Park)
Tour Leader: Kim Roberts
Length: 1.5 hours | Starts and ends: Shaw Metro Station | Pre-registration required via this Google Form.
Friday, April 20, 11 am - 12:30 pm

Islands and Borders: Reimagining the Poetry of the Black Diaspora (Panel)
Presenters: Kwame Dawes, Jonterri Gadson, Shauna M. Morgan, Christopher Rose,
Frank X Walker
Friday, April 20, 1:30-3 pm
Charles Sumner School Museum & Archives Room 102

Timeless, Infinite Light: QTIPOC POETS (Reading)
Presenters: Andrea Abi-Karam, Angel Dominguez, Jasmine Gibson, Joel Gregory, Hannah Kezema, Tatiana Luboviski-Acosta, Raquel Salas Rivera
Friday, April 20, 1:30-3 pm
American Association of University Women Room 1

After Tizon & Duterte: Reclaiming Narratives of the Filipinx Diaspora (Panel)
Presenters: Regie Cabico, Jerrica Escoto, Christopher Rose, Janice Lobo Sapigao
Friday, April 20, 3:30-5 pm
National Housing Center Room C

Mixed Messages: Disrupting Dominant Narratives of Multiracial Identity in 2018 (Workshop)
Presenters: Natasha Chapman and Naliyah Kaya
Friday, April 20, 3:30-5 pm
American Association of University Women Room 2

Radical Traditions: tatiana de la tierra and Gloria Anzaldúa's Poetry (Panel)
Presenters: Sarah A. Chavez, Julie R. Enszer, Olga García Echeverría, Sara Gregory, 
Dan Vera
Friday, April 20, 3:30-5 pm
Charles Sumner School Museum & Archives Room G-3

Witness and Experience: Luso/Latinx Poets Voicing Brick City Life (Reading)

Presenters: Marina Carreira, Hugo Dos Santos, Roberto Carlos Garcia, Ysabel Y. Gonzalez, paulA neves, Dimitri Reyes
Saturday, April 21, 9 - 10:30 am
National Housing Center Room A

Holding Space Beyond the Page: Black Women Writers on Solidarity (Panel)
Presenters: Destiny Birdsong, April Gibson, Kateema Lee, Maya MarshallSaturday, April 21, 11 am - 12:30 pm

National Housing Center Room D

When I Enter: Black Queer Femme Sex, Resistance, and Survival (Reading)
Presenters: M. Saida Agostini, Xandria Phillips, Casey Lynne Rocheteau, 

Alison C. Rollins

Saturday, April 21, 11 am - 12:30 pm

National Housing Center Room B

Carved from the Rock: WOC Poets on Expanding Sanctuary (Reading)
Presenters: Mahogany L. Browne, Yesenia Montilla, Cynthia Oka, Seema Reza
Saturday, April 21, 1:30-3 pm
National Housing Center Room D

Invisible Poets: Literary Activists as Writers (Reading)
Presenters: Elmaz Abinader, Sarah Browning, Cathy Linh Che, Celeste Guzmán Mendoza
Saturday, April 21, 1:30-3 pm
Charles Sumner School Museum & Archives Conference Room

Poets at the Borderlands of Change: Celebrating Gloria Anzaldúa (Reading)
Presenters: Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, Tara Betts, Sarah A. Chavez, Olga García Echeverría, Miguel M. Morales, Dan Vera
Saturday, April 21, 1:30-3 pm
Charles Sumner School Museum & Archives Room 102

Writing from Where We Are: Race, Queerness, and Bearing Witness (Workshop)
Presenters: Kali Boehle-Silva and Bianca Vazquez

Saturday, April 21, 1:30-3 pm
Charles Sumner School Museum & Archives Room G-3

Poems that Resist Police Brutality & Demand Racial Justice - Post #16

We Who Believe in Freedom Cannot Rest -  Poems that Resist Police Brutality & Demand Racial Justice

Until the killing of Black men, Black mothers' sons, becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a white mother's son -- we who believe in freedom cannot rest.
                    - Ella Baker

Even as our hearts break in rage and anguish over the murder of Black and brown people throughout the land by police who are not held accountable, here at Split This Rock we are heartened by the powerful actions in the streets and the visionary leadership of mostly young people of color in this growing movement for justice.

We are also moved by the poets, who continue to speak out, and especially by BlackPoetsSpeakOut.

In solidarity, Split This Rock offered our blog as a Virtual Open Mic, open to all who responded to our call for Poems that Resist Police Brutality and Demand Racial Justice. The poems below were submitted in response to that call. All of the submitted poems in this and previous posts were delivered to the Department of Justice on January 23, 2015 and the call for submissions is now closed. To see photos of the reading, demonstration and delivery of the poems, visit Split This Rock's Flickr account.

Please note poems with complex formatting have been posted as jpegs, as this blog has a limited capacity for properly displaying these poems. We apologize if these poems are not accessible to you.

For more information or questions, feel free to email us at info@splitthisrock.org.

If you are moved by any of the poems below, please contact the Department of Justice and your local representatives to demand for police accountability. Visit Ferguson Action Demands for more information.

****

Justice for Joy

by Delroi Williams

Full of the self importance given by a number and rank

Enforced by legislation designed to deny the right to reside

In a land built on the sweat of her peers and foreparents

Supported by 500 years of might is right, ignorance rules OK!

            Yuh push she down

            Gag she mouth

            Till blackout! Blackout!

            Blacks out! Blacks out!

Another case warranting closer inspection

Fails the detection of truth. Court codes

Spell remorseless, one more less, no rest

For you people, this place is just a sojourn

            Well jus in case yuh feelseh

            We’d ah let it pass

            Don the mask of silence forget

            Fullness, watch this space

One beautiful race together in joy to overcome the sorrow of a

Brutal depart’yah

A campaign to end the veins of our family being cut any more

To heal the scars of your society’s mad and vain attempt to stop the black

From flowing, every growing, changing this sad cold place into

            Little Jamaica

            Little Barbados

            Little St Kitts

            Little Nigeria

            Little Somalia

            Little Ghana

We still ah come!

Echoes the cries of children deprived of mothers

Mothers deprived of sons, sisters deprived of brothers

Brothers deprived of brothers, sisters, fathers, sons and mothers

We still ah come!

An’ any fool know the rule of law;

A Jamaican woman’s home is fe’she yard

Nuh badda enter widout a welcome

An’ nuh raise yuh voice, muchless yuh han’

Only a pig would ignore this, insist she leave, without due cause

That her resistance was excessive, warranted a dumb death

Another stifled voice on the other side of the waters

But we’ll neva stop beat feet to de riddim

Sing songs of remembrance until we receive Justice for Joy

*Note: Joy Gardner was killed by police, by being bound and gagged, at her home in, London, England, 1983. The Police had tried to serve a a deportation notice, as she had overstayed her visa. When Ms. Gardner resisted the police forcibly gagged and bound her with 13 ft. of tape, leading her to fall into a coma, from which she later died.

****

The Evidence

By Camisha L. Jones

There was a gun

There was a cop

There was a Black boy

The Black boy had no gun

The Black boy had

      His skin

      His breath

      His hands

The Black boy had enough

For the cop to be afraid

The Black boy ran

The Black boy ran

The Black boy ran

The cop chased

The cop was not chased

The cop had

      a gun

      a badge

      a car

The cop had fear

It leaned into his car

Ugly words all in its mouth

Strong arms bruising his thinking

About the boy

The cop said

The kid’s hands were thieves

The kid’s hands were violent

The kid’s hands forgot how history brands itself with new names

At the trigger of white men’s fear

They say that evidence

Doesn’t change

That evidence is fact

They say the boy is dead

And that is a fact

They say the cop had a right to deadly force

And that is another kind of fact

They never say

The boy was afraid

That fear put running in his legs

They say the child with no gun

Rushed toward the cop

And the cop saw the darkest brutality

Growing in the guilt of his skin

They say the kid forgot

What his momma taught him ‘bout

Black boys and police officers

They say the cop had a right to his fear

No one is sure where the boy’s hands were

Some say the boy

Had his hands up

Had his hands over his head

Had his hands in front of him,

Palms up, ready to receive

What we know is

His hands were his hands

His hands had nothing in them

His hands couldn’t hold him to this life

Or innocence

What we know is

The cop was afraid

And the kid was

Breathing

And Black

The cop held his fear

Like the weapon it is

In this land of liberty and amnesia

And the gun

It knew the boy

Like any precious prey

Would run

****

America’s Unconstitutional Grill

by Bob McNeil 

Near the counter,

    One seat away from a guy named Uncle Sam,

    I sat in America’s Unconstitutional Grill,

    Notorious for its discrimination special.

    Recollections took my psyche traveling

    Throughout gripped and whipped generations.                                   

    I remembered Sam’s culture-ramming family

    Capturing my kin

    And reducing them to abused horses

    In a round pen.

My temper went from a semiautomatic pistol

    To a ballistic missile.  

    Around then

    My anger could have leveled

    America’s Unconstitutional Grill. 

Right before my left was going to punch Sam

    So his teeth would meet a dirt heap                                  

    Beneath some table’s feet,                                   

    Noncaucasian children came in.

    They ordered cheeseburgers.

     A sour-cream-demeanoured waitress,

     Wearing a hairnet,

     Said, “The Grill did not get

    The School Budget Tomato Sauce yet.”

Judging from the way

     Their liveliness took a graveyard turn,   

     Noncaucasian children did learn

     Unconcern made their meals burn.     

According to other Noncaucasian patrons,

    There was not much pepper

    In the House and Senate stew.  

    Noncaucasian patrons spat discontent

    Over the cop-frisked pork biscuits 

    Accompanying assorted penal-smelly vittles. 

Seconds from leaving America’s Unconstitutional Grill,

    Despite my refusal to select a speck,

    The waitress tossed me a check. 

    After I tabulated

    Subjugation's cost,

    I told the ashy cashier,

    “Get the damn owners to atone

    And reimburse for every year

    My people spent here.” 

****

Black Lives Matter

by Liliana Hernandez

It’s 2015 and I want to stop counting

The names of all those that we have lost

The travyon martin,

Eric garner,

Tamir rice

In unnecessary murders committed by the police.

I want to stop counting that

There were 593 people killed by police last year

And 108 homicides in DC.

Its time to stop counting and to start demanding accountability

We have taken to the streets, closed traffic on the 14th st bridge, blocked trains in Baltimore, paraded on the streets of all the major cities in this nation

Stating Black Lives matter

This is our time to stand up

to count every voice to say

why black lives matter

because we are here today to change this world

we are going to fight to get guns off of our street, drugs out of our community,

we are going to fight to hold all citizens accountable for murder, including the police,

we will stand up to the NRA and say more guns are not the answer.

We will stand up to our city officials and demand affordable housing and homes for all our homeless that are on the city streets

And we will demand from all businesses that living wage jobs are available to all DC residents.

This is our time to stand up and make our voice heard

Because its 2015, and I’m done with counting the names of the lives we have lost.

It’s 2015, and we will love all our young black and brown brothers and sisters, and we will create communities of courage that we are all proud to live in. 

It’s 2015, and its time to make our voices heard.

****

(Untitled)

by J.M.

“This movie can’t be about race.” - Danez Smith

It can’t be about the Black teen with dreams and aspirations born in the wrong neighborhood.

It can’t be about the sexy Latina who is never going to become a doctor because she is just a sex image.

It can’t be about African American children growing up without their fathers.

It can’t be about Black people and Latinos fighting over streets and white people living in gated communities.

It can’t be about family problems because of an interracial relationship.

****

(Untitled)

by Jai-Anna Carter

“I want a scene where a cop car gets pooped on by a Pterodactyl, a scene where the corner store turns into a battle ground.” - Danez Smith

Why should my brother be shot down at the local corner store, whether by police or an unmindful being. Every life counts. Put your guns away & save your bullets for nourishment, make this a memorable one, go to the corner store & offer advice, something to save a life, even the binge drinker will listen, the cashier with five kids making ends meet will listen, the young boy who is surrounded by gangs will listen, just my brother will listen, that young boy who could be you, giving advice one day.

****

(Untitled)

by Anonymous

We are who we see

Thick hips, long legs

Long hair, manicured feet

Strong Black woman on the outside

Weak little girls on the inside

The Big Screen depicts skewed views

Society accepts what is viewed

The stereotypes of loud, ignorant

half-clothed women

As for aspiration, they haven’t a clue

We are more than what you see on the big screen

We can better influence our young

Better roles in Hollywood is a start

But it all starts at home

Let’s start building better black women from the inside out.

****

(Untitled)

by Colin

Why do people judge by the color of people’s skin? Why not judge by their compassion & life?

Why kill them because of their skin? Why kill them for things worth killing them for; killing,

stealing & other stuff.

A man once told me “Let freedom ring!”

so let it ring.

Poems that Resist Police Brutality & Demand Racial Justice - Post #8

We Who Believe in Freedom Cannot Rest -  Poems that Resist Police Brutality & Demand Racial Justice

Until the killing of Black men, Black mothers' sons, becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a white mother's son -- we who believe in freedom cannot rest.
                    - Ella Baker

Even as our hearts break in rage and anguish over the murder of Black and brown people throughout the land by police who are not held accountable, here at Split This Rock we are heartened by the powerful actions in the streets and the visionary leadership of mostly young people of color in this growing movement for justice.

We are also moved by the poets, who continue to speak out, and especially by BlackPoetsSpeakOut.

In solidarity, Split This Rock offers our blog as a Virtual Open Mic, open to all who respond to our call for Poems that Resist Police Brutality and Demand Racial Justice. The poems below were submitted in response to that call.

Please note poems with complex formatting have been posted as jpegs, as this blog has a limited capacity for properly displaying these poems. We apologize if these poems are not accessible to you.

For more information or questions, feel free to email us at info@splitthisrock.org.

If you are moved by any of the poems below, please contact the Department of Justice and your local representatives to demand for police accountability. Visit Ferguson Action Demands for more information.

****

WE ARE A LONG WAY

by Burgi Zenhaeusern

from walking side by side, as long as

you are presumed guilty.

Only ignorance lets me 

approach you without prejudice, but how 

can I choose ignorance when you have no such choice.

Only silence lets me 

look past the color of your skin, but how

can I silence what my kin does to yours

First definitions for you and me:

black or white, then male or female.

Where I grew up

the Other spoke Italian, Czech, or Hungarian    

we were all white and didn't know.

Since I've come here, I can't forget 

that I am white. I carry 

my whiteness self-consciously, want 

to unlearn the distinction. But how

can I want to move beyond when you can't,

when you still carry

the whole burden of proof

while i am presumed innocent.

I see you and wonder,

I see you and don't know,

I see you and stop

being myself.

How about you?

****

The Uneasy calm of Ferguson

by Chandramohan S

A bunch of writers

At an international writing program

Sit around a table to write

On their idea of justice,

No one could snatch off the gag

From their mouths

And let the silence free,

No one could spill the ink

From their blood-

The uneasy calm of Ferguson.

****

DINNER WITH CORNEL WEST

by Karla Cordero

I'm a brown girl who likes her dinner warm

& waits for the boiling soup to settle inside her bowl.

I notice how the vegetables swim beside each other.

This moment breaks as the TV screams

about the new sewage flooding Ferguson. My tongue burns

on broth in an uproar forgetting the piece of squash

escaping my spoon, & dives back in the heap of its bowl.

As Ferguson continues to fall, 49 arrests, 49 voices protest.

Practicing the first amendment from their tongues

& Mr. Cornel West pushes through the dirt of law.

He's too elegant for police siren & pepper spray dressed

all black suit, tie, & silk scarf. Cornel must be hungry rustling

through the herds of uniform & riot shields. I raise

my spoon, shove a carrot beside his small TV mouth.

I can't tell if he's eating or still begging for justice.

He waves his hands like a preacher at Sunday church.

Batons smile, shatter gospel & the people of Ferguson

fall. Cornel leaves handcuffed & hungry.

My tongue throbs losing its taste buds. & inside my

mouth the carrots forget how to compliment the corn.

****

SOWETO REVISITED

by Monica Minott

Lord why are we still singing

while our children our dying.

So much blood... flowing.

That was then, that was Soweto.

But is it not happening again?

In the streets of Ferguson,

we march with hands up,

they gun us down.

In Florida, stand your ground

they gun us down.

Trayvon's bullet buried deep.

In the streets of New York City

we can't breathe. Oh Lord,

we can't breathe.

And yet we are still singing.

freedom is coming...tomorrow.

****

Protest

by Leslie Anne Mcilroy

The star that dives of its own 

volition, sailing into the night

to know the wind, the glory,

arms wide, the freedom/freedom

of falling. The star that climbs 

higher, shining bright/bright/brighter,

how light has never been

too light, how no night can gag/

cuff/kick/shoot/drag/strangle

the constellations from your 

mouth, still shining blood

and glistening teeth and fury,

how silence is dark, dark is 

your mouth, dark the air you

breathe when you say nothing,

when nothing is what you say. 

****

Poem for the Ayotzinapa 43 and Michael Brown: Reasons why it is okay to be angry, Reasons why we deserve to live.

by alejandro jimenez

Because black ad brown lives matter.

Because Michael Brown was 18 years old.

Because 20, is the average age of the missing 43

I work with a student whose cousin 

Is one of the missing students

Talking to him makes time and distance seem more tangible

Not because I am Mexican

But because my cousin was beaten to death

Lucky for us,

His body was left by some train tracks

We do not have to wonder where he is

My aunt does not have to hold fists full of dirt

And wonder if those are his ashes,

we held a funeral for him and not a search party.

Because the statement above,

Should not be considered lucky.

Because our blood is the oil that keeps the machinery running smoothly

The machinery, of a system that was never meant for us

A system, that has never been broken

It has always rewarded whom it was suppose to reward

It has always gotten rid of whom it was suppose to get rid of

Because poor people have always been seen as disposable

Because reaching for your wallet may be a death sentence

Because being big and strong may be a death sentence

Because asking for a better education may be a death sentence

Because mexico is not just a tourist destination

Because people only talk about mexico during cinco de mayo

I wonder if Americans think mexico is shaped like a corona bottle

I wonder if Americans can smell the burning bodies

When they light up their cheap marijuana joints

Because they will take our land, citing the bible and manifest destiny

They will militarize it as part of their foreign policy 

They will make us illegal, claiming national security

But they never complained about the middle passage

or about jim crow, or about the KKK, or about lynchings,

Because immigration is only good if we are all destined for a plantation

Because ¡ya me canse! I am fed up!

Is not just a chant

vibrating out of the mouths of millions of protesters in Mexico City

It is a chant echoed in 

Iraq,

Syria,

Palestine,

Afghanistan,

The Congo, 

Nigeria,

Burkina Faso,

Chicago,
Ferguson,

Denver,

Because ¡vivos se los llevaron, vivos los queremos!

You took them alive, we want them back alive!

Is not just a plea demanded by parents across Mexico

But also those in

Argentina,

Chile, 

Uruguay, 

Los Angeles,

Cleveland,

New York,

Marvin Booker.

Because darren wilson celebrated thanksgiving 

It is not thanksgiving, it is things taken

Because parents in ferguson, missouri

Because parents in guerrero, mexico

Will weep over those taken away from them

Because darren Wilson claimed he had only one bullet in his gun

Because Michael brown was shot eight times

Because we do not want our gold returned to us in form of bullets.

Because they have made everything black: ugly and evil

Because they have made everything brown: dirty and unworthy

Because they have made everything white: pure and beautiful

Because white privilege means you can murder

Because white privilege means you will get away with it.

Because america's justice system justifies violence

Because mexico's justice system justifies violence

Because I want to be peaceful and violent at the same time

Because their juries do not speak for us

Because the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house

Because they can bury us

But, indeed, we are seeds.

Stubborn dandelions that will not go away

Because there are still songs to be sung

There are dances to be learned

Because resiliency,

Has always been the backbone of our people.

We look for a better life

But we are tired of finding slaughtered teeth and no indictments

Because no matter how pretty I describe murder,

stolen breaths,

Unfurled smiles,

Broken hummingbirds,

Crucified sunflowers,

It does not make caskets any more enjoyable to look at.

Because I wanted to write about

Honey and flowers

About the sweet and the beautiful

About waves and sunsets,

Because 43 bodies burned to ashes 

Is not good poetry material

Because a black body,

Spread on a street for four and a half hours is not good poetry material

Because I hate writing about this shit.

Because I have a 1 yr old nephew

And I dread the day

That I will teach him how to defend himself

I dread the day

I will have to explain to him why we should mistrust the police

Why his skin is a target

Why when he walks he should not hold his head too high

Why some days he will just have to be okay with saying   "yes, sir".

Because I will hate to tell him

That questioning his education may be a death sentence

That trying to reason with the devil may be a death sentence

That being big and strong like his father maybe a death sentence

That raising his voice might be a death sentence

I am afraid that we may have to teach him

That being himself in this world, may be a death sentence.