GATHER by Alice Walker

..sharing a poem written by Alice Walker (with permission)

Month of Resistance NYC 

www.alicewalkersgarden

Gather

©2014 by Alice Walker

for Carl Dix and Cornel West

It is still hard to believe

that millions of us saw Eric Garner die.

He died with what looked like a half dozen

heavily clad

policemen

standing on his body, twisting and crushing

him

especially his head

and neck.

He was a big man, too. They must have felt

like clumsy midgets

as they dragged him down.

Watching the video,

I was reminded of the first lynching

I, quite unintentionally, learned about:

it happened in my tiny lumber mill 

town before the cows were brought in

and young white girls

on ornate floats

became dairy queens.

A big man too,

whom my parents knew,

he was attacked also by a mob

of white men (in white robes and hoods)

and battered to death

by their two by fours.

I must have been a toddler

overhearing my parents talk

and mystified by pieces of something

called “two by fours.”

Later, building a house, 

i would encounter the weight,

the heaviness, of this varying length

of wood, and begin to understand.

What is the hatred

of the big black man

or the small black man

or the medium sized

black man

the brown man

or the red man

in all his sizes

that drives the white lynch mob

mentality?

I always thought it was envy:

of the sheer courage to survive

and ceaselessly resist conformity

enough to sing and dance

or orate, or say in so many outlandish

ways:

You’re not the boss

of me!

Think how many black men

said that: “Cracker,* you’re not the boss

of me;” 

even enslaved. Think of how

the legal lynch mob 

so long ago

tore Nat Turner’s body

in quarters

skinned him

and made “money purses”

from his “hide.”

Who are these beings?

Now we are beginning to ask 

the crucial question.

If it is natural to be black

and red or brown

and if it is beautiful to resist

oppression

and if it is gorgeous to be of color

and walking around free,

then where does the problem

lie?

Who are these people

that kill our children in the night?

Murder our brothers in broad daylight?

Refuse to see themselves in us

as we have strained, over centuries, 

to see ourselves in them?

Perhaps we are more different

than we thought.

And does this scare us?

And what of, for instance,

those among us

who collude?

Gather.

Come see what stillness

lies now

in the people’s broken

hearts.

It is the quiet force of comprehension,

of realization

of the meaning

of our ancient

and perfect

contrariness;

of what must now be understood

and done to honor

and cherish

ourselves:

no matter who

today’s “bosses”

may be.

Our passion

and love for ourselves

that must at last

unite

and free us. As we lay our sacrificed

beloveds to rest

in our profound

and ample caring:

broad, ever moving,

and holy,

as the sea.

* Cracker: from the crack of the whip wielded by slave drivers.

www.alicewalkersgarden.com

Reprinted with permission.

All Out for the Month of Resistance to Mass Incarceration, Police Terror, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation!  October 2014.

www.stopmassincarceration.net

www.revcom.us

Author's Note

Thanks for reading...
Chose "Strange Fruit" by Billy Holiday because these murders are todays "lynchings".
Nina Simone also did versions of this song.. and Kayne West a sampling of the Nina Simone version and added his style hip hop to it

Reviews

[wordman]

i have no idea what causes this hate for people,and all these killings from cops is getting out of hand

[Thomas Fitzgerald]

The entire heart ache lends to the frustration in waves of panic and disbelief, a telling piece.

[MsJewel]

The anger and ignorance is so very shocking.....Alice Walker's words hurt my heart...truly.

Julie

[jacob erin-cilberto]

such hatred! how can they sleep at night with this much rage and bigotry...

i love alice walker....teach "Everyday Use" in my Lit class...

thanks for sharing this piece, redzone.