For the month of April, I am participating in 30 days of #verselove poetry writing with Dr. Sarah J. Donovan's Ethical ELA.
Today's inspiration was from Anna J. Small Roseboro, who shared Paul Laurence Dunbar's poem "We Wear the Mask." She encouraged us to write about masks in some way, perhaps including a line from his poem, thinking about our own observations about masks this year.
I simply couldn't shake the image of Darnella Frazier from my mind, the young woman who filmed the murder of George Floyd. I keep thinking about her doing this ordinary thing, walking to her local store with her nine-year-old cousin, and then coming across this horror.
I use and repeat one line from the Dunbar poem - "Beneath our feet, and long the mile." I also quote a line from her testimony during the trial this week regarding her fear for Black men in her life being treated this way by police - "That could've been one of them."
she filmed
a poem about the bravery of Darnella Frazier
fearing George Floyd would die all alone
she confronted fear, and courage found
defying warnings and terror all around
she filmed
Beneath our feet, and long the mile,
nine full long murderous minutes fill
and twenty-nine seconds longer still
she filmed
seventeen years young, her brave soul asked
how to answer his gasps, “please, please!”
face to face with threatening police
she filmed
Beneath our feet, and long the mile,
nine full long murderous minutes fill
and twenty-nine seconds longer still
she filmed
recognizing this depravity as ordinary
her brothers, her father, her cousins, her friends
she knew “That could’ve been one of them”
she filmed
Beneath our feet, and long the mile,
nine full long murderous minutes fill
and twenty-nine seconds longer still
she filmed
police knee pressed upon his neck
opening eyes, letting the whole world see
what is truly masked in the land of the free
she filmed
Beneath our feet, and long the mile,
nine full long murderous minutes fill
and twenty-nine seconds longer still
she filmed
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