Editor’s Note: In order to highlight the state of our urban schools and the school-to-prison pipeline, Dee Dee wrote the below poem in response to a recent assault in a Philadelphia public school. To read an official account of the incident, here are two different sources: philly.com and Philadelphia Student Union.
The Color Orange
My son, sixteen, knows her son, eighteen.
My (white) son, sixteen, knows her (black) son, eighteen.
So we all know that what we are reading in the paper–
the statement by the school district–
is a lie. I am a poet, so I want to write something true
even though it is not official and will not be believed.
(I am white, and I finished college on a full scholarship from a top university,
so I have been conditioned to expect that what I say
will be listened to.
This is the background of this poem.
This is the foreground of this poem.
This is why the school district spokesman will be believed
and her son (eighteen, black, five feet four, eleventh grade) will not be believed
even though his body carries the evidence.)
Ben Franklin was a poor (white) boy who did well,
became healthy, wealthy, and wise from going to bed early apparently,
so it was appropriate for his City of Brotherly Love
to name an institution of learning after him.
In the high school named for him,
all the bathrooms are locked, and there are school military police
on every other floor. To use the bathroom, you need a pass.
To get a pass is usually impossible. The police-guards sometimes let you in,
or you have to try another floor, another guard. Good luck.
Her son needed to use the bathroom.
(How many times did I walk into a bathroom today and use it?)
He had no pass. The guard (over six feet, white)
refused. This guard has been giving him the evil eye anyway.
Damn. Try another floor, another guard.
(Why do we have guards instead of counselors and nurses?)
The next floor. Same guard. Got here ahead of him, looks mad.
(Reader, are you wetting your pants yet, remembering high school,
having to go,
what if you wet your pants in high school
outside a locked bathroom.
But I digress, and anyway, you didn’t go to a highschool with locked bathrooms,
did you?) Refuses to let him use the bathroom. Again.
Her son is not violent. He is smart and committed to justice.
But he has been pushed to the edge, he has to go.
He hurls an orange against the opposite wall.
(You could see the mark of the orange on the opposite wall before
they cleaned it up and said instead that he threw in the other direction,
at the guard’s head. Lots of people saw it, but then,
they were just black and brown kid-people.
The in-charge people had it erased by a brown janitor.)
The police-guard was angry. Two crushing fists into the student’s face now
(five feet four, brown boy son), then head smashed against the floor,
the choke hold.
On the video taken on the iPhone of his friend
(brown boy, armed with technology that can be a witness) we only see
the chokehold part. For two long seconds, I hear his imploring words
as he holds the phone, knowing it is the defense his friend
will need, urging the guard: “Let him go, dawg—he isn’t even resisting.”
I watch her son
pinioned in the blue grip, lying on the floor of the school
named for Benjamin Franklin in my fair city of brotherly love
getting quieter, face flushed,
losing air, consciousness,
seeing black.
(Oh sorry, that was us seeing the black…)
I pause this poem while I go use my unlocked bathroom
and as an aside, thank God there is finally some kind of technological witness–
the only way even good white people like me
whose experience is that we are listened to will actually believe
what goes on,
and still we think it must be a trick, an isolated case;
the film must have been tampered with.
This new technological witness troubles our restless (white) dreams–
Rodney King, Fruitvale Station, Eric Gardner—
lifting them into digital brightness.
(Luckily there is always the fall-back—the cover-up about what came before the tape,
the myth of the violent black-brown man
lifted up as justification.)
He cursed and hurled an orange. Fact.
Orange at the opposite wall.
Sticks and stones, but words shall never hurt me.
Let these words hurt you.
After,
the kids are taken to the office.
The administration makes the iPhone boy (brown, young)
erase the video from his phone.
The boy (brilliant, loving justice) goes home
and pulls the video from the cloud of witnesses
which is why I am even writing this poem,
and why the school district had to make a statement duly dispersed and digested by reporters:
School District spokesman Fernando Gallard disputed the choke hold, saying it was “clearly a restraining hold and not a choke hold.”…. the student “voluntarily” began banging his head on the floor, an act that was witnessed by the school’s principal, Gallard said. “After all this occurred, the student is declaring he was assaulted by the school police officer, ” Gallard said. “We are now conducting an investigation because we take those accusations seriously.”
It doesn’t really matter. We are a culture of lies anyway.
Consider this description on the website of the high school of one thousand students in
our fair city named for Benjamin Franklin in which every day bathrooms are locked:
A comprehensive high school where graduating students embark on one of these pathways: attend a 4-year college or university, attend an accredited 2-year technical program or trade school, join the military, or enter the workforce.
The school will consist of two small learning communities: 9th- and 10th-grade community, and 11th- and 12th-grade community. Each community will have a coordinator and counselor dedicated to develop programs, celebrate successes and support student academic and career goals.
I see her son’s head smashed against the wall like an orange.
I see hallways of students: Black: 78 percent. Latino 14 percent. Asian 5 percent. White 2 percent. The fairest,
brilliant of my fair city still full of courage.
Let him go, dawg, he’s not even resisting.
I write this poem because I want all of us to resist.
I don’t want to stay part
of the willing unknowing cloud of un-witnesses any longer.
I can no longer bear to pull on my white skin–
my pass for the bathroom and my pass for life—
without naming its power.
I write this poem to say something true,
but also because I do not know what part of her son’s injuries
allow my son to breathe clear air.
The video is available here: