[the Writing of Kuypers]
I know everyone was talking about it and after the fact
and you’d think that we were in a war zone and that all of this
and maybe they were and I just don’t know it. I don’t know. I
close people out to it, I tried to include them, to open them
called “take back the night,” so that people knew that women
worrying about being mugged or raped or killed because they were
photographs because I’m a photographer, and a group of women
and started walking with them, and they were chanting and singing
and one of the women told me while we were walking that some
and they were African American. and I looked around and noticed
place, and the woman replied, well, some people don’t like you
and I crossed the street and took another block and got there before them.
though I still don’t understand it. and during that parade I heard
crime, and the black community was outraged, saying that
and I just don’t understand it. a large group of people started their own
i mean, they’re just women, what are they going to do, bitch a little louder,
of deciding who has the loudest voice, or who has the most recent problem
the next day that in light of the trial 23 fires were started
and I thought, this isn’t nonresistant violence, this is out and out violent
“yeah, but do these books hold what the white man wants you to learn?
solve anything and this isn’t the answer... then I heard about one of my
while they were out that night, and the doctor said that they had to have
of their jaw and for six weeks his jaw was wired shut and he had to throw pizza
while he tried to recover. and I thought, is this all getting anything done?
[JanetKuypers.com][Bio][Poems][Prose]
People’s Lives Were at Stake
you’d hear the reports on the news about the damage done
was done for religious purposes and people’s lives were at stake
know what it’s like to have a cause but I never tried to
up to it, but I remember deciding once to walk to a woman’s parade
should feel safe walking alone in the streets at night without
female. Well anyway, I was walking to the parade to take
were walking in a group to the parade, so I walked down the street
and I thought, wow, this is unity, people together for a cause.
women there didn’t like me walking with them because I was white
that there wasn’t a racial mix, and I said, well, we’re all going to the same
walking with us anyway. so I turned my head and let them walk
and this is how we define how we should be separated, I suppose,
about a trial case where a black man was convicted of a police brutality
the white man was holding them down, and maybe in a way they are right
rally that night which seemed to take center stage from women’s rights,
or complain a little more, but then again, maybe it is just a matter
to complain about, I don’t know. we went out that night, and I heard
on school property, and most of them were of books in libraries
and what they’re destroying are opportunities for learning and not ideas.
if this how he alters our perceptions?” i don’t know, but this doesn’t
best friends, a white man, hit once by a black man in the street
a roll of quarters in their hand or brass knuckles because this was a clean break
or meat loaf in the blender so he could eat something instead of ice cream
are we coming any closer to racial harmony? what are we learning from this?
Copyright Janet Kuypers.
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