Warsan Shire’s poetry has become familiar on the Work Day list; it will lead today’s untypical post. My niece Anne Carlson is very familiar to me but not to most readers of the list. When I read the post she wrote to many of her relatives, I was moved to ask if I could post her words. Anne said yes; her post follows Warsan Shire. Her post is not written as a poem until you read it several times. Best to read these poets out loud, with pauses, perhaps several times. I am honored to post Warsan Shire and Anne Carlson side-by-side today.
Have a blest day,
john sj
Post #1: “what they did yesterday afternoon”
by warsan shire
they set my aunts house on fire
i cried the way women on tv do
folding at the middle
like a five pound note.
i called the boy who use to love me
tried to ‘okay’ my voice
i said hello
he said warsan, what’s wrong, what’s happened?
i’ve been praying,
and these are what my prayers look like;
dear god
i come from two countries
one is thirsty
the other is on fire
both need water.
later that night
i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?
it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsan_Shire
Warsan Shire
1988-
Post #2: Anne Carlson writes her cousin
You are my cousin. I write this open letter because I am angry and I’m sick of your snarky, white -male, patronizing remarks on what I am posting on my FB page. I’m writing this to any of my family members who share [your] views as well. I know you are watching.
I am not going to be “Minnesota nice” right here.
I’m tired of worrying if I am hurting your feelings because you are family. I’m tired of caring whether I am saying this is the right way. I’m tired of your defensiveness. I’m tired of you intellectualizing about race in America when you have no idea what it is like to be black; you have no idea what it is like to raise a black son in this hostile world. You have lived in the other America–the America where cops serve and protect you. A world where you can walk wherever you want with freedom.
I write this letter to you and to all of my other family members who continue to reroute the conversation away from the PAIN and the ANGER about the murder of black people. Stop antagonizing me and baiting me about the looting and the destruction and the “outside agitators” and posting false news articles. You comment about things I post as if to say that I somehow encourage looting and destruction of communities. I DON’T. It breaks my heart. At the same time, I get why people are PISSED! This anger didn’t just come out of nowhere. This has been built over centuries. No one wants to see a small business, that has served the community, destroyed. Why would you ever think I encourage destruction of people’s beloved communities?
Stop quoting black leaders’ words out of context because it makes you feel better about yourself. And if you are quoting black leaders, at least read ALL of their work, and include women of color too in your daily reading, like Audre Lorde. Shame on you for googling Brainy Quotes and copying and pasting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s words about non-violence when you don’t quote his more militant speeches.
Read up on redlining and housing discrimination. Read up on the city planners who created segregated cities because black neighborhoods were seen as dangerous. Read up on white flight. Ask your friends and family members why they live in gated communities; ask why they don’t have black neighbors and friends; stop saying you know black people because you have a black co-worker.
I want to hear your ANGER and HEARTBREAK as if George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Philando Castille and Tamir Rice and Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin and Ahmaud Arbory and Sandra Bland and Lequan McDonald and Eric Garner and so many others were your friends, your sons and daughters, your nieces and nephews, your cousins, your family.
Not once have you acknowledged the PAIN I feel when I look at Malcolm and all his amazingness and know there will be a time when he is seen as a threat. You might even cross the street when he walks by or clutch your belongings. Not once have I heard you acknowledge the ANGER people are feeling. You instead center yourself in the dialogue.
This isn’t about you. Stop talking and posting your opinions about looting and outside agitators. That is in the mainstream media. We know that side of things. Be different.
If you are going to quote about non-violence, then apply that to law enforcement as well. You celebrate the 4th of July every year which was a bloody revolution and involved lots of destruction of property, but yet you can’t understand why people are rising up now against a tyrannical system. Place your blame in the right place. And also, you can embrace dialectical thinking in that you can be heartbroken about the destruction of communities while also being ANGRY about institutionalized violence toward black people.
I am not “unfriending” you on purpose even though I feel tempted to do so. I feel a responsibility to challenge you in a more public way because I’M TIRED!! PERIOD!!!!
Love,
Your cousin, Anne