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Police Brutality by Makense Garcia

For my poem assignment, One of the most offensive articles or cases that I found disturbing was the case of Amadou Diallo. It poorly discusses how the police officers approached Diallo. Diallo was an unarmed West African Immigrant who was shot 41 times because he was “acting suspicious.” It bothers me because all Diallo wanted to do was provide for his family. Instead, his life was taken away in the streets of Wheelock Avenue located in the Bronx, NY.

When I had to brainstorm for this project, I looked up police brutality backgrounds. The police officers attacking the African American showed up above. Also, I printed out The New York Times article about Amadou Diallo and cut out the the words that were essential to me. As you can tell, all the words that I cut out were related to Police Brutality. The word that I found disturbing was “41 shots” because it was unnecessary to even kill an unarmed African American. I hope you guys really like my found poem!

– Makense Garcia
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Sensitive Cry Baby

     For my found poem assignment, I chose to use a hateful post on Facebook that is against transgender people. It poorly discusses the event of a tampon company offering non-gendered packaging. The author of the post uses “sensitive cry baby” in nearly every sentence and I found it comical because they are implying that transgender people are being sensitive cry babies over something as simple as a product, and yet the author of the post is actually the one making a huge deal out of it. I decided to use their own words against them. 

     The beginning of the poem is in red to signal the author’s nasty dialogue and in the end I switch to black where I cut them off and throw their own words in their face, proving that they are, in fact, the sensitive cry baby flipping out over a simple product. I felt extremely angry creating this because I don’t understand why people have to be so hateful (hence ripping the paper instead of cutting it). If you don’t agree with something, fine, but don’t actively seek out a way to attack innocent people. Also, “feminine”  was capitalized in my poem to show that tampons are advertised as “female”. It has been this way throughout history, but history is changing and if a tampon company wants to show support for the lgbtq+ community, then that is something to be celebrated. No one is being forced to buy them. By all means, go spend your money on the frilly pink box that advertises periods as an incredible and happy experience! This activity made me see how powerful words can be. They do so much more than teach. They are able to create empathy and feelings of distress or fury. It’s fascinating to me and I thoroughly enjoyed creating this poem. It was a great outlet for my anger too. I felt a lot better after spending time ripping apart the words. 

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Which Hunt

“Which Hunt” by Samantha Brigandi

My Found Poem titled “Which Hunt” was made from clippings of the transcript of Brett Kavanaugh’s opening statement to the Supreme Court last year. The hearing between Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Kavanaugh was a very long, publicly broadcasted, political event that really was a pivotal moment for the Me Too movement. I personally sat in front of my laptop, livestreaming the whole afternoon and being blown away by the scrutiny that Dr. Blasey Ford faced. How well she had spoken, how thorough her answers, and how painfully honest she had been absolutely floored me. And when it came time for Judge Kavanaugh to give his statement, he was absolutely unhinged, shouting like a maniac and literally screaming about drinking beer. The worst came later of course, but what I could never really forgive was the media and many Republican politicians referring to the Me Too movement as a “witch hunt.”

Witch Hunts, specifically the American based hunts like the Salem witch trials, historically were attacks on women. Globally, witchcraft has often been used to demonize and punish female sexuality. The overwhelming majority of witch hunt victims were women and girls. Additionally, most of the cases of men killed during the witch hunts were gay men. I feel this is very important to remember because, nothing makes me angrier than the absolutely insulting irony of straight white men trying to compare themselves to victims of witch hunts. So, I decided to find all the times that Judge Kavanaugh said “which” and the accompanying phrases in his opening statement. I think the results speak for themselves. Ultimately, I did want to end with the message to remind everyone that true progress for the Me Too movement will not come from the trials of women and witches. It will come from judging men to be better and to not make excuses for any man, even our fathers, our friends, husbands, or our brothers. Especially if those brothers are frat boys from Yale.

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How Can a Pro-life World be Good for Women.

I chose to talk about the very controversial topic of the ban on abortion. The article I read talked all about how a pro-life world is good for women. This got me pretty angry considering society is once again trying to tell others what is good for them. How can something that takes away rights to my own body be good for me? I should be the one deciding what I want to do with my body but instead men are. The way I formatted my poem was to make the last word stand out so I made each line shorter than the last basically leading your eye right down to the final word, “pro-woman.” 

This project was a lot harder than I thought it would be because I had an idea of what I wanted to say but I had a limit on the things I could actually say since I had to use someone else’s words. It was also challenging since we had to make it about the complete opposite claim the article stated. It was still a lot of fun to make and I really enjoyed comparing the article to the poem because they are so different. Creating this one page took me a good amount of time so I can’t imagine how long it took to create something like Zong! 

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3 Months

By Marissa Dauber

I chose to focus on the Brock Turner case for my found poem. If you don’t know of this case, a college student sexually assaulted an unconscious drunk woman behind a dumpster. This case makes me extremely angry and emotional, because he was only in jail for 3 months. I chose to use a news article where the victim’s statement was used. I whited out a lot of the words, leaving the most shocking and devastating details of that night. The words are scattered randomly, in no particular order, in a way that doesn’t make much sense. This is because the night was confusing to the victim, and I wanted my reader to feel as confused and disoriented as she did. My goal was to shock my reader; it is supposed to be difficult to read, because of how terrible of a night it was. Her words are also, unfortunately, a reality for many sexual assault survivors. I cut out every time the article said Brock Turner’s name and glued it to the very top of the paper. These words are bigger than hers, as symbolism that he overpowered her, both that night and in his ridiculous jail sentence. However, I also wanted his name to be big and bold and at the top of the page, so the reader knows the name of the horrible man who committed the crime they’re about to read about. I think it’s very important we remember his name. I put “3 months” at the very end of the paper, for the reader to read after they just learned every gruesome detail of that night. This is also for shock, and to stress how crazy his sentence was. Lastly, in the middle of the page, I included a quote from the victim. I wanted to include this and make the font large, because this quote resembles her strength and power throughout this whole situation.

This assignment definitely made me think differently about how powerful language can be. I like the act of making a found poem, because it can be very therapeutic. You can re-make something into whatever you want, and make it have the effect on the reader that you want. This got me thinking about how Philip must have felt while writing Zong!. It probably made her feel angry and passionate, but also at peace that she was able to re-tell a story how she wanted to. It also made me realize that words don’t need to be organized in a “traditional” way to be powerful and have an effect on the reader.  

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infidelity by Jaden Forteau

In today’s generation, rap has many functions. Conscience rappers, like Tupac Shakur and Common choose to rap to get a positive or important message across. They focus on creating awareness on topics such as discrimination and politics. There are also “Gangster rappers” who choose to rap about what life is like living on the streets and hustling to make money. You will most likely hear “Gangster rappers” showing off their exotic cars and exotic women in their music. This is exactly what the rapper Future did in his song called “My Collection”.

 I chose to rearrange and cut the lyrics to this highly offensive song. I picked this song because the lyrics are a huge disrespect towards women and that made me infuriated. He spoke of them as items instead of humans with lyrics such as “Even if I hit you once, you part of my collection” and “Any time I got you, girl you my possession”. I rearranged these lyrics into a female response. I titled my found poem as “infidelity” so that you guys can be aware about what you’re going to read about, and hopefully a better understanding after you have read it. In my found poem, a woman finds out her significant other has been being unfaithful and this is her response to him.

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Work for Week of 11/4

Hi all,

Just a reminder that your found poem and artist’s statement should be posted to our course website by 11:59 pm on Wednesday, November 6. Don’t forget to check the box “Found Poem” under “Categories.” Please also bring a hard copy of your poem to class on Monday, November 11, so we can publicly display them!

Make sure to read your classmates’ poems, leave a comment on your favorite, and come prepared to discuss the poems in class on Monday.

Instructions for the artist’s statement as well as midterm revisions can be found in the slides from last week. The midterm revisions handout is also available here.

See you all on Monday, November 11! Happy writing and revising!

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Language is Alive

       In this literary piece, Zong!, language is a subject that is brought up quite often. In school we are taught how to write and read. We must not use run ons, fragments, must have proper grammar and punctuation, but most of all, we must make sense. If we do not follow these rules, then we might appear uneducated. 

      Zong M. NourbeSe Philip challenges our ideas of language. He states that, “I deeply distrust this tool I work with— language.” (197) and goes on to explain that historical events are often changed or portrayed in a way that is not true, as with the case of Zong. The African slaves on the ship were not even written as people, but objects, chattel, property. Philip stresses the importance of grammar— how it can change a topic so drastically if used in the right way. If we were to look at the argument the captain made in his case, we can see that the murders of the slaves on Zong were discussed, but not in a way that was right. Language here has power. 

       The way that Philip talks about language makes it come alive. In the beginning of Zong! the words do not really make sense and we find out later that this was purposeful. Philip explains that he wrote the text in a way that he literally cut words up, used violence against them as was done to the slaves. They are strewn about the page, making the reader feel disoriented. To me, this was a beautiful point in this literary piece. Language is alive. It can be used in so many ways and even just a few words can represent a larger picture. The way the words were acting as the African slaves is a work of art. Sometimes it is a stronger statement to stray from formal ideals of writing. Instead of forming a poem in a typical line-by-line format, Philip manipulated the structure and therefore made his language so much more powerful. 

  1. How did the way Philip set up his poem make you feel? (What thoughts went through your head as you read it?)
  2. Do you feel that language can have its own mind or do we (humans) give it one?
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Cruelty and Money

In Zong M. NourbeSe Philip repeats a line “This is a story that can only be told by not telling.”(191). How is a story told without telling? Philip uses different techniques to tell this without actually telling it. Philip humanizes her writing “I mutilate the text…I murder the text.”(194) She is saying this because it was how the African people had been treated on the ship during the slave trade.

The fact that these people were objectified and had been listed as cargo was demoralizing. These were human beings that were put on a ship and became an object of trade. Many of the slaves on the ship were not accounted for and were categorized as if they were produce, the slaves had names that will never be remembered because they were considered objects. Philip states “They would be paid for murdering 150 Africans… Neither captain Collingwood nor those who had helped in the massacre could be charged with murder, since what was destroyed, being property, was not capable of being murdered.”(191). They had the ability to kill people without any consequences, basically killing innocent people for money. The way people were turned into objects showed how little they cared about these human beings just because the color of their skin and where they from.

The way this book is written is quite confusing, in Zong 1 the writing starts with the repeating of water and one day. Is it someone asking for water or is it describing the sea surrounding the ship? Many of the African people on the ship had died from thirst and starvation or other natural causes, but mostly they were killed for insurance money.

Questions:

  1. What could the names at the bottom of the pages mean?
  2. Does Philip’s technique of writing have a different effect when reading? Why or why not.
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It’s Not Just Serena Williams

In the book, Citizen: An American Lyric, by Claudia Rankine, the reader is given several examples of injustices against African Americans. These examples include Serena Williams, Trayvon Martin, Rodney King, Mark Duggan, and more. All of these individuals faced injustices due to their skin tone in multiple ways, showing that racism can appear in a multitude of ways. Some of these injustices include poor calls made on the tennis court, and injustices faced from white police officers. The injustices faced by Serena Williams are a bit tougher to realize, as they are microaggressions and meant to be hidden. Unlike Rodney King and Mark Duggan, Serena’s hardships did not include violence, so it was not heavily covered and their was minimal efforts to make any improvements. Microaggressions have hindered African Americans for many years, and they are not going anywhere as their will always be some form of racism in the world (as long as their are different races). These microaggressions will stay apparent, and be attempted to try and limit the full potential of African Americans.

Microaggressions towards Serena Williams can be seen all throughout Rankine’s text. One example is when Rankine states, “Subsequently, a ball that Stosur seemingly would not have been able to return becomes Stosur’s point. Serena’s reply is to ask the umpire if she is trying to screw her again” (Rankine, online book page 41). The previous quotation exemplifies just one microaggression that Serena Williams faces throughout her career. Although she encounters multiple microaggressions, Serena Williams never gives up and keeps attempting to play through the hardships thrown at her. Serena never wants to quit a match no matter how poor the calls against her are, she just wants to keep trying harder to get past the obstacles thrown in her direction. Serena is well aware that the calls are being made to favor her white opponent, as tennis is an extremely white sport and it is being gauged to have a white winner. Rigging in sports mainly occurs with gambling, but in Serena William’s case it is done to create a favorable winner in the match (the white opponent). She is in a practically all white scene and is attempted to be pushed out with poor calls due to her skin pigment. For Serena this proves true when a picture states, ” I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background” (online book page 62). As Serena Williams is playing in a white dominated sport, she is often cast into an all white background. The microaggressions of unjust calls put her into an extremely uncomfortable position. However, she makes the best choice and pushes along, knowing that she is talented enough to be playing amongst white people in the crowd who want her to lose and knowing her presence and good performances bring them sorrow. For racists that would find pleasure with the downfall of Williams, they would prefer for her to act out when microaggressions are displayed to her. This is because a negative reaction will come with a hefty fine and a ban as well (this was seen the only time Williams displayed a negative reaction following a microaggression). By not acting out, Serena Williams is properly combatting these injustices, as by acting out she would be providing people with the reaction they want to see and she would also face negative consequences. Perhaps Serena evolves into a much more calm player is because she realizes that she cannot prevent microaggressions, on or off the court, so all she can do is ignore them. When facing microaggressions & injustices the proper response is to strive through, and Serena Williams exemplifies that. Yet in sports, others have also faced microaggressions, and responses and actions heavily affect the outcome.

Microaggressions are extremely common to a racial degree in sports, and it has been seen with athletes other than Serena Williams. For example, one major microaggression has been keeping Colin Kaepernick out of the NFL, and to make sure he isn’t signed by any team. Colin Kaepernick is an ex-NFL Quarterback and he was the first one to kneel during the National Anthem. Many view Kaepernick’s actions as hatred towards America, but Kaepernick’s reasonings are known once he states, “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color” (Wyche, Kaepernick Explains). Kaepernick’s true reasons for kneeling are completely viable, as he is showing regard and concern for others who face injustices. Even with him explaining this, people still ran with the interpretation that Kaepernick hates America and the troops, as that gains more attention than pointing out racism. However, in a sport that is regarded as “America’s Sport,” Kaepernick’s actions that were interpreted for the worst created a virtual blacklist for him so he wouldn’t get any football jobs. Once Kaepernick opted out of his contract with the 49ers he found it impossible to find another job in the NFL, as the white owners did not want a player who disliked America (even though this was not the case). Although several other NFL players also followed suit with Kaepernick and also kneeled, he faced most of the backlash as he was the first one to do it, so the media and everyone else began to villainize him. For African Americans playing sports, they face microaggressions all the time whether it be on or off the court. Their reactions to these microaggressions can determine an African Americans athlete more so than talent or skill sometimes. For Serena Williams she handled these microaggressions gracefully for the most part, ignoring them. However, for Kaepernick his actions blew up too much and he found himself blacklisted from the NFL.

Discussion Questions:

  1. If you were in Serena Williams shoes, would you have handled any of the microaggressions differently from how she did?
  2. Name one other scenario in sports where you recognized a racial injustice towards an athlete, also note that athletes response.

Works Cited:

  • Rankine, Claudia. Citizen: an American Lyric. Penguin Books, 2015.
  • Wyche, Steve. “Colin Kaepernick Explains Why He Sat During National Anthem.” NFL.com, 27 Aug. 2016, http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000691077/article/colin-kaepernick-explains-why-he-sat-during-national-anthem.
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