Bodies

Note: To read the ProPublica article that inspired this poem, click here. To hear Jonathan reading this poem, listen to today’s episode of Shake the Dust.

“If the Negro is to be free, he must move down into the inner resources of his own soul and sign with a pen and ink of self-assertive manhood his own Emancipation Proclamation.”
— Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

This poem is about bodies. Not bodies of water or bodies of work, but bodies covered by water, mud, brush, or dirt. 

Not unearthed by chance like when me and my little brother found bones looking for minnows by the creek, but on purpose as white men search for new ways to make money.

Black bodies under barriers, brown bodies under borders, or out in bushes, backwoods or boondocks.

Out of sight and out of mind until they interrupt or could be politicized or commodified.

Like the bodies buried in Boydton, Virginia in Mecklenburg County.

Black bodies found in what was the Moseley Family cemetery moved by Microsoft to make way for their new data center. 

Big tech deleted them like an unwanted search history, 

They emptied the caskets to make cash for caching our crap in the cloud.  

Thank you ProPublica and Seth Freed Wessler for seeing Mike and David Moseley, for remembering Stephen and his toddler son Fred, for exposing Alexis Jones and EnviroUtilities and Wayne Carter who found the remains of 37 Black people, packed their bones and belongings in plastic crates, and buried them in four graves where they wouldn’t bother Nadella and Gates—as they demonstrate what it looks like when Black lives don’t matter and you  illustrate through your time and attention what it means when they actually do. 

This piece is called:

"Bodies"

People
Names
Habits
Delights
Thoughts
Dreams
Hopes
Aspirations
Ambitions
Rituals
Rhythms
Songs
Prayers
Proverbs
Poems

All the beautiful and broken, messy and amazing of it – embodied
life all bound up
in dark, beautiful, collective skin

Beheld, hated, taken, chained, labeled
Renamed and shipped away

Beautiful bodies in 1619 the Virginia company deemed
Black bodies, commodities, and moved us for money
Now another company in Virginia is moving us for money

They crushed us for cotton and now our bones are in the way 
Highlight skulls and femurs and dirt,
Control X and paste them in another place
Black bodies at the bottom of the American way
While everyone lives on top of us 
We’re supposed to know our place, stay and be grateful
just forget from whom and where we came 

You know…
We went in the water Ashanti and Igbo and came up
Jonathan, Jennifer, and Toby
Black people
With White names
and gray thoughts
no bodies now
Just Somebody’s now
Like Jim’s hog or Massa’s cow
We have
Black habits
Things Black people like
Black dreams
Black aspirations
Black ambitions
Black music
Black magic
Black songs
Black Lives
Black hopes
We are Black folks
And the stuff we touch, we taint 
And change its nature to Black
Fascinating a whole neighborhood leaves because of one Black home
Trying to live in a place where they once debated if we had souls
A land that determined by vote we were Three-fifths not one whole
Black Power bound up in brown skin
Hemmed in by a false fence called race
Black bodies forever bound to colonization
our false history said to begin with slavery
Black bodies on the bottom rung of white supremacy
So now we carry this trauma wherever we go –
In our bodies

Oh how will we change this? What will we do?
How will we cope? Will we make it through?
They’ve moved our bodies and built the buildings
We’ve seen and they’ve proven
They will do whatever they want to.
Ban our books, fire our teachers, burn our churches
Lynch, maim, kill, shoot, doesn’t matter if there’s camera footage.
Evidence be damned, it’s relocation without hesitation and with impunity
Pluck us up and move us out
Black bodies don’t belong in this community.
So where do we go?

Accept King’s invitation to go inside.
My body might be chained but my mind has amnesty
My spirit is immune and this Black soul is gonna dance in my community.
First me with God; then me, myself, and I; and then me and mine
Because this dark skin is filled with light
And I refuse to hide.
I bear witness to the one who made me, and the one who was sent.
I am made in the image of God no matter what your book says. 

I am not who you say I am unless you agree with him.
The God who made me, you, 
And everything, 
That is
He is the one who holds it all together 
White people are just pretending.

So say what you will, his voice is louder.
I may be silent amidst your nonsense
I am yielding to a different power
And if you dare take me like you did Martin, Emmett, and Ahmaud

Please know you can kill this body and move it wherever you like. 
But one day I’m gonna get up and answer the call from my master, Jesus Christ. 
I’m signing my own papers like MLK said I must
I withdraw my deposit in this society
Because whiteness is bankrupt
I’m leaving this burning house, and I’ll be okay
Just like Jesus we are only borrowing these graves.