The topic of violence (fueling ) protest immediately made me thing of a talk titled Moving From Pain to Power with bell hooks, Marci Blackman, and Darnell Moore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpKuLl-GC0M&t=1802s
hooks says,"I worry because so many of our energies of protest and resistance are outer directed, what if we took away all the police brutality in our society would Black males be self- actualized ?
When confronting violence and protest I wonder if protest is only present in the midst of active violence, and if so is that why real change never occurs... do we need to be less reactive taking steps forward before we have been pushed back? But how would one know that a protest is needed without the first social strike against humanity is made?
Jason Carney uses craft to illustrate and communicate the story of racist violence in his poem America's Pastime. The dash symbol/ hyphen always follows a name or a key point that inserts a poem within the poem. For example:
White America -
Mary Turner-
1840's negro man-
Not much changing-
Not much changing-
Not much changing-
This is American Truth-
This may not be the lines of a solid poem, but by included the - into the craft Carney encourages those lines to stand alone a create a rift and voice to the work that stands alone when teased out.
I also found the line breaks to hold relevance for the violence felt by the WRA ( White Racist America(n) actions. For Example
smell of fire
fingerprints burned off bodies,
hung and shot,
half his burnt head stuck on
eight months pregnant,
hung upside down,
split along the gut,
All of this lines are acts of violence that are crafted differently holding a separate space on that pages that demands the readers attention. This lends volume to the emotional voice of the piece as well.
Thank you for sharing that talk, Tyrice, I hope to be able to watch it soon. I think your question, "how would one know if a protest is needed without the first social strike against humanity.." is key. It's such a huge question, and although I don't currently know how to answer it, I will think about it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link! Your thoughts on protest and active violence are really interesting. I see so often major protests, marches, movements being reactive and then ending before any change has come out of it. That kind of protest is not productive. However I don't necessarily see it as responding to 'active violence' since there is hardly a day in America where atrocious acts of violence aren't committed. So maybe its more about visible violence. I think I'm getting a bit off topic, but if your interested the documentary United in Anger: a History of Act-Up, covers one of the most effective activist-movements in america and is a really helpful guide on putting constant unyielding pressure on people of power. In the current sate of america, where there are so little avenues for people to make change, to protest, we need to diverge from 'acceptable' and expected ways of fighting back. I'm definitely off topic now, sorry.
ReplyDeleteAWWW
ReplyDeletesomeone finally talked about the line structure of this poem. It seemed like the place to start since the list of atrocities had to be mitigated by structure and design- Thank you!