Riots: a revolution without privilege
Emmy award-winning news producer and author Nikesha Elise Williams reads her searing poem for Lacuna Voices. Her powerful words have never been more relevant
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Nikesha Elise Williams recites her poem about racism, riots and revolution for Lacuna Voices
Malcolm and June
What is a riot,
but a revolution without the prism of privilege?
It is the voice of the oppressed
expressed in fiery shouts of rage.
Because the only way we can get people to engage,
is to become exactly who they think we are. Fulfilling a prophecy we never had about ourselves.
Playing into pre-written scripts
that cite lack of intelligence,
and highlight our strength
as a means to justify racist ends.
Just because you see muscles ripple in our back,
and tendons gleam beneath our skin,
does not mean that there aren’t thoughts processed by the computer held within. Beneath the fleshy folds
of our frontal lobe
lies the desire for freedom.
The yearning to be more than just one thing. But the world has a way of crushing our ideas before we can dream,
a way of silencing our voices before we ever get it into our head to scream.
So, by the time we come out of the meek, and docile act;
there is no time left for outsiders to react. Because what we recognise as the bleeding heart of pain…
Is assumed to be a rebellion…Against what they cannot say.
So, I ask you,
“What is a riot, but a guerrilla war waged against colonizers who specialise in Columbusing everything that was never lost they claimed they found?
Stealing the sights and sounds, music, food and even the way we sing our ShoooooooBeeeeeeeeeDoooooooBeeeeeDoo-os.
What is a revolution?
Is it not warfare to determine whether Darwin’s theory of evolution still stands?
Whether the survival of the fittest is found in the best black, white, brown, or other kind of man?
Is it not the reason Israel fought Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon?
The reason God’s children have no place in the world to belong.
The reason Alexander the Great and Constantine became known as great invaders.
The reason Portugal, Britain, France, and Spain became great raiders.
Stealing natural resources that can never be replaced.
Thirteen million souls strong.
Thirteen million souls gone
in the business that created race.
Known for “discovering” what was already there,
laying claim to what already had a name, establishing superiority among a people who never knew inferiority.
Then they wonder why bondage didn’t fit. Why against their dominance we resist.
Why their power we don’t respect.
And why in anything we do we say, “We the best!”
We don’t need a revolution,
when we’ve already found the solution, to end our tears at their expense.
To stop our pain without false pre-tense, and to break free of social constructs that were never meant for us.
But, how, can we resolve to evolve beyond ablution,
when we don’t even have a stake in our own constitution?
So, what is the point of a revolution?
Through their eyes it will just be seen as another desperate cry for help.
Not connected to any other event.
An apparent
disparate moment
That will soon be forgotten.
I guess that’s why we always have on reserve the evocative word
to create and conjure . . .
images of destructive violence
beyond the rapture . . . the Riot.
But what is a riot, but an un-revered insurrection?
The steps back we voluntarily take to course correct and begin to go in the right direction. The lessons in all the ways that are rightfully wrong just to get attention.
Because we’ve run out of cares, damns,
and fucks to give.
If going backwards means we’ll find the route
that leads us to live.
The path that promises more than slaveholding ancestors ever did.
Beyond the call for reparations,
that’s become a presidential play in patronization.
We have no more use for forty acres and a mule,
but we can always be repaid with equal schools.
Not the discarded leftovers left over after white flight,
but the ones where academics matter more than sports.
Books are current.
The arts are valued.
And the ugly stains of my black history
don’t suffer an erasure
to protect white tears and feelings like our pain doesn’t matter.
In this school where we educate the next generation,
they will learn the difference between critical theory and indoctrination.
So, whenever they are faced with an equation or question . . . like
“What is the difference between a riot and a revolution?”
They can stand flat footed and firm in their answer and say:
“What is a riot or revolution but a response to a raised black fist in the air.
The silent yet demonstrative protest.
That makes those wonder if they should second guess:
The evolution of the sit-in.
The maturation of the march.
And the increased sophistication of the
protest picket sign.”
Our revolutions were spawned from riots that left:
An indelible mark.
A lasting impression.
And a permanent tattoo that says we will
no longer accept hostile transgressions, overt racism, or workplace micro-aggressions.
We have come to claim all of our unalienable rights:
Life.
Liberty.
And the Pursuit of Happiness…
Even if that means we have to fight.
Too many are sacrificing their lives for the greater good only to never get it.
Images of their bloated bodies flashed on TV screens without care for their humanity.
Or upon arrival they’re ushered through immigration and housed in cages,
yet none of us are supposed to think that these high security brick and mortar facilities are the new plantation.
We are no longer accepting the convincings of alternative facts.
We don’t buy into social media propaganda disguised as marketing e-blasts.
We’re not here for fixed elections or hanging chads.
We’re here to go:
Toe to Toe,
Round for Round,
Swing for Swing, and we won’t back down.
Because come hell or high water…Riot or revolution…
Call it whatever you want,
just make sure there’s no confusion.
We are Here
in spite of what you seem to believe is our perceived disadvantaged lack.
Our very survival
is a revolutionary act.
~
Join the movement
Write to your MP to stop export of small arms (rubber bullets, pepper spray etc. from UK to USA
Support charities
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Sign petitions
Petition Mayor Jacob Frey and the District Attorney
National Action Against Police Brutality
Unpack your racism
Nikesha Elise Williams for Lacuna Voices
A Black and White Killing, The Case that Shook America Mobeen Azhar’s BBC documentary
Social experiment: take a walk in my shoes Jane Ellis
Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad
How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X Kendi
Biased by Dr Jennifer Eberhardt
Why Black should have a capital B
contribute to bail funds
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