I Could Be Trayvon

My “hoodie” picture needs no wardrobe change. no new setting— a faculty office will do just fine, just as it was several years ago at FIU, when a security guard drew his gun on me as i left my office one evening. Was it the fact that i spoke to him in Spanish that saved me? Simply, and even softly: “Calmate. Soy Profesor.” But this/my story is the story of many of us. ain’t new. i am not surprised by what ZImmerman did to Trayvon. What de system (yes, Mutabaruka has already told you) has done to him and his family and all justice yearning people, again. but rather, oddly, i am  deeply shocked by the consistency. the banality. the everydayness of the denial of recognition of the humanity of black boys and girls men, womyn, some who are both & some who are neither. … ellipsis (and you may wonder how long it takes the writer to recover, to place hands shaking on keyboard. how breathlessly the author muffles his sobs in his office which literally overlooks ivy colored walls on a beautiful New England Spring day)

Parenthesis. odd word. hold multitudes. hides sins.
So the truth is, i do my work where i find it. yes. & i try to support those doing their work where they find it & where i can. Yes. & i do what with this sadness? and —yes, i think it is, finally after so many years, yes finally rage. i do my work … .