by Judy Juanita
Don't know Scott Adams or his mother,
Dilbert's done
Yo muva
Don't know Tyre Nichols' mother
RowVaughn Wells wearing the shroud
in Tennessee
(this week)
But to the five little pigs in black-skinned masks
In Tennessee
(this week)
Yo muva
Where is George Floyd's mother?
Where is she?
My God. Where is she?
Can such a body of water be found on a map?
"Your mama’s a whore, sucker,” Eldridge shouted at University of California, Berkeley in his last demented era
Yo muva
Yo muva
George Floyd begged for his muva
Long gone from this bitter earth
Tyre called for his muva
Three blocks away
Three blocks away
The muva in me can't stomach
one more investigation
No more chest thumping
the muva in me won't last
one more minute
Yo muva
Yo muva
Yo muva
Yo muva
I told my grandson
I HATE WHITE PEOPLE
Then I qualified it.
NOT ALL WHITE PEOPLE, NOT MY FRIENDS, NOT INDIVIDUALS, JUST THIS ROTTEN HOLLYWOOD-BASTARDIZED APPROPRIATED CULTURE THAT HAS GLORIFIED WHITE PEOPLE AND GIVEN EVERYONE PERMISSION TO EXTERMINATE US.
Permission to hold us on the ground and exterminate us like vermin
But that dresses up "the talk"
What I have to say
To the nth degree
Where karma waits like a volcano
Where the long arc of justice bends
And bends until it breaks
And gets repaired with Krazy Glue
Where some Pope sits on a throne with a potty seat hooked up beneath his flaccid ass
In between “the talks” about keeping his hands visible on the steering wheel
And being careful about predawn sneaky links in ritzy white neighborhoods
Is
Yo muva
Judy Juanita's semi-autobiographical novel about her youthful experience in the Black Panther Party Virgin Soul was published by Viking in 2012. In 2021, her short story collection The High Price of Freeways (Livingston Press, 2022) won the Tartt Fiction Prize. Her poetry collection Manhattan my ass, you're in Oakland won the American Book Award in 2021. She teaches writing at the University of California, Berkeley.