A Call to Action from Anya on how to engage with the poem to create a virtual protest of collective voices:
Let's mobilize and share the message widely. We will not stand by and do nothing. Create a video of yourself reading the section of the poem that connects with where you are right now, what you are feeling, and what you want to say. And/Or, go to the organizations's handles below and donate.
1) Record video of yourself reading your selection of the poem aloud
2) Put the link of the poem here on SideLight in your bio
3) Share your video on social media and tag:
@AnyaPearson on twitter / @iamanyapearson on instagram as well as the following handles: @colorofchange @reclaimtheblock @blackvisionscollective @blacklivesmatter
#nojusticenopeacenomoreracistpolice #blacklivesmatter #justice #racismisavirus #justiceforgeorgefloyd #minneapolisfreedomfund #theshowmustbepaused
Pass the call to action on, and add any other handles and hashtags that you want to include.
1. This is NOT a Facebook rant
People in positions of authority
Listen up.
Don’t speak over me. Listen.
The average American,
The silent majority,
if you voted for Tr***
Listen up.
Looking down your nose
at those
of us
Weighed down by the injustice
Of a criminal justice
system that works
unjustly
is NOT just
Does not justly
represent black men,
brown men,
impoverished citizens
Who cannot afford the best counsel
corporations can afford
When did us versus them
“justice”
just us versus them
become corporations versus men?
When did it become impossible
to get justice as an individual man?
A little man?
Common man?
David versus Goliath man?
We’re not going to win.
System rigged, decks stacked against us, man.
There is no denying,
We dying.
Behind bars, in police cars, in the streets.
Cops’ knees in our backs.
Yelling, “we can’t breathe.”
Hands up.
“Why you stopping me?”
“Please don’t shoot!”
“What did I do?”
We are dying.
Lying in pools of blood, for hours,
in the streets,
while cops (cowards) planting guns
to justify their implicit bias
with departmentally backed lies.
(Congratulatory high fives.)
Internal reviews, walls that bleed blue,
a no snitching policy
that means their silence
is more valuable than the truth.
“I had to shoot him,
We shoot to kill,
what else was I supposed to do?”
When will we stop letting us versus them
just us versus them
become a license to kill
based on the racial difference among men?
Officially sanctioned,
governmentally sanctioned,
presidentially sanctioned,
Homicide,
the government lies, check the historical ties,
trace the lineage of the lies, directly back to the founding white guys.
They divide and conquer, separate and attack,
spew alternative facts
to distract us
from the truth.
But listen close.
Run that back.
We are dying.
We are dying
in modern day detention camps,
Let’s be real,
concentration camps,
at the borders.
People desperate for a better life.
Criminalized
and stripped of their rights
for having the courage to flee
the instability
perpetrated by American foreign policy.
Refugees fleeing violence
just trying to get by and survive,
give their kids a better life.
ICE swoops in and locks them up.
Private prisons making big bucks,
kids and babies living in squalor,
ripped away from their mothers and fathers,
corporations congratulate each other,
another day in service of the almighty dollar.
The system is broken, a token for your consideration:
WE ARE DYING.
2. The answer is NOT a sign in your front yard
Behind bars,
in police cars,
in the streets.
Used to be
they string us up from the trees.
Cops’ knees in our backs.
Yelling, “we can’t breathe.”
Hands up.
“Why you stopping me?”
“Please don’t shoot!”
“What did I do?”
We are dying.
Lying in pools of blood,
in the streets,
while cops planting guns
to justify their bias
with departmentally backed lies.
“We shoot to kill,
what else was I supposed to do?”
a no snitching policy
that means their silence
is more valuable than the truth.
Our truth.
Officially sanctioned Homicide,
Internal reviews, walls that bleed blue,
Then they call it justified.
But it’s still homicide.
The system is broken,
a token
for your consideration.
3. This is NOT a performative act of wokeness
Malcolm said the gifts of the constitution
weren't meant for us,
citizenry was an illusion
never meant to be gifted to us
(like a heartbeat, underneath)
No justice
No peace.
The American dream
Is a ponzi scheme
Never meant to trickle downstream
From the ruling elite to you and me.
(like a heartbeat, underneath)
No justice
No peace.
It’s just us
Speaking up to end the injustice we see
that threatens
our shared humanity,
none of us are free
if we can’t all love openly.
No justice.
No peace.
The American dream
Is a ponzi scheme
Never meant to trickle downstream
From the ruling elite to you and me.
The doctrine, a concoction,
to distract the huddled masses.
We will not take your lashes.
The powers that be never meant
for any of us to be free.
No justice.
No peace.
Its just us,
Just you and me.
Whether you look like them,
or me,
the American dream is a ponzi scheme
never meant to trickle downstream.
They never meant for any of us to be free.
The legacy of our ancestry:
Stolen from
our homeland,
brought in bondage
to this land.
From slavery to Jim crow
the fear of black upward mobility continued to grow
to criminalizing our fight
for civil rights
so they can lock us
behind bars
or shoot us from cop cars
and call their implicit bias
justified
No justice.
No peace.
No more racist police.
The legacy of our shared ancestry?
Is that the powers that be,
the founding fathers,
never meant for any of us to be free.
No more racist politicians,
who never actually listened
to what the people want.
No more politicians
bearing witness
To the wrong side of history
Straying from morality,
denying their humanity,
preserving the fragility
of own their white male insecurity
clinging to the bullshit myth that the wealthy elite
deserve more than the poor.
Hiding behind dog-whistle phrases
lazy coded messaging,
inflaming the race-based-hate of the silent majority
other white males frustrated
by their own lack of authority.
No more politicians
on missions of
emphasizing,
aggrandizing,
demonizing
our supposed difference.
They keep us at war with each other
over who has been the most mistreated.
So that we don’t notice their greed,
egregious misdeeds,
where this is all going to lead,
their phallic need
for unlimited, unchecked power,
that all these active shooters
have white supremacy creeds.
That that guycan’t even fucking read,
That they ALL force feed
their talking points to the people who already agree.
That responsible journalism has officially died,
along with common sense.
This is my plea for a return to sanity.
The system is broken.
A token for your consideration:
Let’s rise up and build a new nation
based on the foundation
of our shared humanity
one that actually
works to uplift and
empower everybody.
Choosing love over hate,
let’s repatriate:
justice,
equality,
and peace,
Let’s burn down the mutherfucking patriarchy.
NO JUSTICE! NO PEACE!
*This is an unfortunately necessary asterisk, "Burn down the mutherfucking patriarchy" is a metaphorical phrase. It is NOT a literal call for violence. It is NOT a literal endorsement of more violence, lest we forget that this all began because of several instances of fatal violence, yet again, by white people against black bodies. It is NOT a literal invitation for people to burn buildings. Patriarchy, like white institutionalized racism, is systemic. It is a systemic way of life that pervades the very fabric of Americana. Its tentacles are in every part of our society. It is not a building, or a store, or a material thing that you can literally burn down. Because the founders of America intended America to be a country, for white men, by white men, and only ever, for white men.
This moment, the second Civil Rights Movement, this frustration and grief and righteous indignation and fury, and the call to action, is about dismantling the power structures at the very heart of America’s foundation. That is what “burn down the patriarchy” means. That is what “no justice, no peace” means.
Anya Pearson is an award-winning actress, playwright, poet, producer, and activist. She was the inaugural winner of the $10,000 Voice is a Muscle Grant from the Corporeal Voices Foundation, for her choreopoem, Made to Dance in Burning Buildings. Made to Dance in Burning Buildings was showcased at Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater and received its World Premiere at Shaking The Tree Theatre where Anya was the Playwright-in-Residence for the 2018-2019 season. Anya is currently working on a series of projects (in dialogue with to Made to Dance)aimed at empowering other survivors of sexual violence (especially survivors of color), raising awareness around the lasting effects of PTSD and trauma, and combatting rape culture. They include: a collection of poetry, a TV show, a documentary, a memoir, and a guide to healing co-authored with a leading trauma expert. Anya recently received micro-commission from Portland Center Stage as part of the Play at Home Initiative. Anya received the $10,000 Problem Play Commission from Bag&Baggage Productions to adapt Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure focused on mass incarceration and its effect on black families. Her adaptation, The Measure of Innocence received its World Premiere in March 2020 before being cancelled due to COVID-19. She was a finalist for the 2020 George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation Fellowship in Playwriting and a finalist for the 2019 National Black Theatre’s I Am Soul Playwriting Residency. Anya runs a production company called Urban Haiku whose mission is to produce groundbreaking work that transcends the traditional boundaries of theatre while also serving as the catalyst for art and community action to combine for real social change. She is a member of Actors’ Equity Association, LineStorm Playwrights, Couch Film Collective, and a graduate of the William Esper Studio in New York City. Her best production is her 7 ½ year-old daughter, Aidee, who can be seen, most nights, trying to circumvent bedtime by asking deep philosophical questions like: “When are we going to see the world? When is my life going to truly begin?”
From Adin:
The links below are to organizations that are doing on the ground work in Minneapolis and are mobilizing efforts around the country to protect protestors. I hope you’ll learn about these organizations and donate to them. And if you are moved to share this SideLight piece with your extended network, I encourage you to also share the donation links to these organizations: