“Things move slowly, but change comes, and it comes from us,” somebody said at yesterday’s rally against the warmongering Halifax International Security Festival. Here are some photos, and a poem by El Jones.
“As someone who only recently took identifying as a Black man seriously, I have struggled to look internally for the parts of me that are so socially visible and yet personally unfamiliar. Searching through music, movement and memory for the shadows that hide my Blackness in plain sight.” Thandiwe McCarthy
A poem by Angela “Angee” Bowden, to remember that this month 400 years ago slaves first arrived in North America.
When the past is my present
And my scars still remain
And our lives still don’t matter
I am living in that pain
“I wrote this piece for the brown and black children who have to walk everyday in this world under a microscope that wasn’t created to get a better view, to understand, or to be seen, but to be defeated.”
A poem and an essay by Guyleigh Johnson.
“But a Black poet among whites can only dare hope to be a gangsta rapper. Suddenly my every rhyme was measured and directed by the only other source of Black knowledge they had: entertainment media.” Thandiwe McCarty writes on being Black and the barriers to finding your own voice.
A poem by Chad Norman about the men of the N.C.A, and others as well, dressed in whiteness, the little fellas with big hatreds. Donald, Jared, Andrew, Jason, Doug, and even Stephen…
It’s exhausting
The way we live
Taking home microaggressions
That we never ask for
From Tired bodies, a poem by Martha Mutale, a poet from Zambia who now lives in Nova Scotia
A spoken word piece Angee Bowden performed yesterday at the rally against racism in downtown Halifax.
A beautiful poem about loss by Chad Norman, one of the NS Advocate’s favourite poets.
Today’s weekend video features a reading of Negro Cemetery, a stunning poem by Halifax poet laureate Dr. Afua Cooper. There is a lot happening here compressed in a just over two minutes.