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Anti-Racism & Racial Justice Library Guide

This guide compiles resources available at CSUMB and from other sources regarding antiracism.

CSUMB Faculty Poetry

“Open Letter to the Police Department”

By Daniel Summerhill, Assistant Professor School of Humanities & Communication

Playing dead is not a pastime,

not a way of claiming liberty, or

self-justice, or eluding inevitable

force. When a black body stops moving,

It is always already a blues-hit silenced

by a government that believes: died

in police custody, somehow –

makes murder sound less aggressive.

Originally published in the Monterey County Weekly on June 18, 2020 

Concerning Fire By Daniel Summerhill, Assistant Professor School of Humanities & Communication

I could hardly imagine all of this righteous rage
going to waste, how our bodies are anti-combustible

anyway. Hard to imagine us feeling remorse
for fire that our skin has always been glazed in,

a kind of clay we have claimed as skin. Or kin,
a rage we’ve claimed as Kin.

Hard to imagine any other way of shedding light
on injustice but through brimstone. For heat

and equality are both fundamental rights and right
now I choose to fan this flame that has been brewing

for years — George was just the kindle. Sometimes
all we need is to weep until our wells run dry and other

times all we have left is fire and we will burn anyone or
anything attempting to put out our flame.

Hard to imagine being on the wrong side of all this smoke —

Concerning Fire was originally published on June 26, 2020 by Trampset

 

Black Voices & Stories- Poetry eBooks @CSUMB