(3 in) 1
BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME – TA-NEHISI COATES
A BRIEF HISTORY OF BLACK FOLKS AND SIDEWALKS – STACIA BROWN
TALKING IN NEW ORLEANS IN THE AGE OF TRUMP – MAURICE RUFFIN
All offer familiar points of reference to allow the reader a deeper understanding of the black experience in America
THE BODY
THE GROUND
THE SAYING
Arguably aspects without much meaning in-and-of themselves, given meaning when placed in their historical contexts
Ta-Nehisi Coates discusses the fragility of the black body
a black life can be taken without reason or question
In using the black body as a point of beginning and ending, he shows the reader a world they either live in or don’t; one where they are either persecuted based on their race or not: it’s black and white, plain and simple
“it does not matter if the agent of those forces is white or black - what matters is our condition, what matters is the system that makes your body breakable” (18)
“So you must wake up every morning, knowing that no promise is unbreakable, least of all the promise of waking up” (71)
Waking up is hard to do,
Especially as a person of color
In America
Microaggressions hit you
Left and
Right
Fast as the cars
Speeding
To make that
Green
Light
But
Being
Black
Being
Black
In America
Turns
Waking up
Into a question
Makes it
An uncertainty
It turns
Justice
For a
Black life
Lost
Into an
Improbability
A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME – STEPHEN HAWKING
A BRIEF HISTORY OF BLACK FOLKS AND SIDEWALKS- STACIA BROWN
STACIA BROWN – A BRIEF HISTORY OF BLACK FOLKS AND SIDEWALKS
STEPHEN HAWKING – A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME
A BRIEF HISTORY OF BLACK FOLKS AND SIDEWALKS- STACIA BROWN
A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME – STEPHEN HAWKI
PHEN HAWKING – A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME
A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME – STEPHE
AWKING – A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME
A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIM
IEF HISTORY OF TIME
A BRIEF HIST
F HIST
HI
The all-too-familiar sidewalk gets a deeper meaning, in Stacia Brown’s hands
A sight of life,
A sight of death,
A sight of grievance
Is what
The concrete
Becomes
A flattened
Tombstone
Where
Splattered
Blood
Demonstrates
Lives lost
Lives
That are
Thereafter
Commemorated
With
Flowers
And
Stuffed animals
From
Strangers
As much as
Loved ones
Walking on them
Shouldn’t be the same
Can’t be
Won’t be
Like in any other city or town, New Orleans has sayings.
These sayings, unlike those of any other city or town, are ones that display and transmit love.
We making
How ya mama and ‘nem?
Baby
Ruffin calls it “speech as disarmament”
Much how the motifs within these three works act as ‘language as disarmament’,
Enlightening those in the dark
Vindicating/validating those plagued by that darkness
BODYGROUNDSAYINGBODYGROUNDSAYINGBODYGROUNDS