Racism and inequality- Power by Audre Lord

The difference between poetry and rhetoric

is being

ready to kill

yourself

instead of your children.

I am trapped on a desert of raw gunshot wounds

and a dead child dragging his shattered black

face off the edge of my sleep

blood from his punctured cheeks and shoulders

is the only liquid for miles and my stomach

churns at the imagined taste while

my mouth splits into dry lips

without loyalty or reason

thirsting for the wetness of his blood

as it sinks into the whiteness

of the desert where I am lost

without imagery or magic

trying to make power out of hatred and destruction

trying to heal my dying son with kisses

only the sun will bleach his bones quicker.

The policeman who shot down a 10-year-old in Queens

stood over the boy with his cop shoes in childish blood

and a voice said “Die you little motherfucker” and

there are tapes to prove that.   At his trial

this policeman said in his own defense

“I didn’t notice the size or nothing else

only the color.” And

there are tapes to prove that, too.

Today that 37-year-old white man with 13 years of police

           Forcing

has been set free

by 11 white men who said they were satisfied

justice had been done

and one black woman who said

“They convinced me” meaning

they had dragged her 4’10” black woman’s frame

over the hot coals of four centuries of white male

           Approval

until she let go of the first real power she ever had

and lined her own womb with cement

to make a graveyard for our children.

I have not been able to touch the destruction within me.

But unless I learn to use

the difference between poetry and rhetoric

my power too will run corrupt and as poisonous mold

or lie limp and useless as an unconnected wire

and one day I will take my teenage plug

and connect it to the nearest socket

raping an 85-year-old white woman

who is somebody’s mother

and as I beat her senseless and set a torch to her bed

a greek chorus will be singing in ¾ time

“Poor thing.   She never hurt a soul.   What beasts they

           are.”

It’s amazing how those in power can change their perception of the difference between right and wrong when it comes to the color of skin.  Racial discrimination contributes to the ability of those in power to take the life of a child and defend themselves with words like, “I didn’t notice the size or nothing else only the color.” The white policeman is set free on those words. How can a black man feel anything but anger at this explanation?

A world dominated by white men disregards the death of a child and even convinces a black woman to relinquish her chance to exercise justice in a jury system stacked against her own race. The tragedy of this story cannot be denied yet white people become so enraged at black on white crime.

Until we make a connection that allows justice between all races violence will continue to take the lives of innocent people and peace in our society will remain out of reach.