Crying, Laughing, Crying at the George Floyd Protests in Minneapolis

 "Still the children and mothers and uncles in cages at the border. Still the prisons packed like a boat’s stinking hold filled with whom we come from. Still the drones circling above a farther sky and dropping our taxes made explosive. Still the forty-fifth President of death does the evil of Presidents with less style to make it look like good. Still the police say to shoot us on the scanner. Still they plow into us by car and bullet and choke hold. Still the Taser and the gun “mistaken” for a Taser. Still they say “vote,” like ballots are shields. Still the white supremacists running around the city, in and out of uniform. Still I have some hope. The school board abolished the police from the halls. The Neighborhood Watches sprung up across the city and make the night a more secure world. If you are reading this and you’ve never been scared of the police, I envy that silly dream, the dream where money guards your door with guns. Why do we have police? Have you Googled where they come from? The precinct’s ancestor is the plantation cabin filled with overseers, between the slave quarters and the big house. When the North came down to free my people, you tell me what burned."

read text by Danez Smith

Notes on the George Floyd Protests in Minneapolis – NY CITY LOVERS: