WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.800 align:middle line:90% "Race Inauguration Day." 00:00:01.800 --> 00:00:05.040 align:middle line:84% How many people went to the Obama inauguration? 00:00:05.040 --> 00:00:06.810 align:middle line:90% I went. 00:00:06.810 --> 00:00:10.500 align:middle line:84% I grew up in Washington DC and I live in New York City. 00:00:10.500 --> 00:00:13.560 align:middle line:84% And it was a cold day, let me tell you. 00:00:13.560 --> 00:00:15.810 align:middle line:84% But I got up at 2 o'clock in the morning and I went. 00:00:15.810 --> 00:00:18.270 align:middle line:84% And I just wanted to write about it 00:00:18.270 --> 00:00:19.950 align:middle line:90% and I wanted to photograph it. 00:00:19.950 --> 00:00:22.200 align:middle line:84% But I had one of those really good tickets like really 00:00:22.200 --> 00:00:23.910 align:middle line:90% up front. 00:00:23.910 --> 00:00:27.960 align:middle line:84% And I got there with my ticket excited, freezing, 00:00:27.960 --> 00:00:30.630 align:middle line:84% and a water main or something had broke, 00:00:30.630 --> 00:00:33.750 align:middle line:84% so they just stopped letting people in like right up front. 00:00:33.750 --> 00:00:37.440 align:middle line:84% So I had to go away in the back by the Lincoln Memorial, 00:00:37.440 --> 00:00:41.230 align:middle line:84% by the National Mall and there's the Capitol and the monument, 00:00:41.230 --> 00:00:42.360 align:middle line:90% and Lincoln. 00:00:42.360 --> 00:00:45.990 align:middle line:84% So I walked way in the back and blah blah blah. 00:00:45.990 --> 00:00:48.820 align:middle line:84% So this is something on the way back to way 00:00:48.820 --> 00:00:51.300 align:middle line:84% in the back I got all these different conversations going 00:00:51.300 --> 00:00:53.358 align:middle line:90% on about the historic moment. 00:00:53.358 --> 00:00:55.650 align:middle line:84% So I tried to write this poem because not everybody was 00:00:55.650 --> 00:00:56.610 align:middle line:90% happy. 00:00:56.610 --> 00:00:58.830 align:middle line:84% And inside of the complexity of the historic moment, 00:00:58.830 --> 00:01:00.870 align:middle line:84% there were people who were really thinking about things 00:01:00.870 --> 00:01:01.912 align:middle line:90% and talking about things. 00:01:01.912 --> 00:01:04.560 align:middle line:84% And some of the stuff I heard I tried to shape into this thing 00:01:04.560 --> 00:01:07.560 align:middle line:84% and I called it "Race Inauguration Day." 00:01:07.560 --> 00:01:09.738 align:middle line:90% It's a short fiction. 00:01:09.738 --> 00:01:11.280 align:middle line:84% It was going to be a science fiction, 00:01:11.280 --> 00:01:15.180 align:middle line:90% but it didn't work out. 00:01:15.180 --> 00:01:16.590 align:middle line:90% Parades. 00:01:16.590 --> 00:01:19.590 align:middle line:84% But not- a- one in the meter of a march. 00:01:19.590 --> 00:01:21.390 align:middle line:90% There were parties. 00:01:21.390 --> 00:01:23.290 align:middle line:90% No, apology. 00:01:23.290 --> 00:01:25.650 align:middle line:90% Then there were more parties. 00:01:25.650 --> 00:01:31.470 align:middle line:84% Still many of our former owners spat at progress, 00:01:31.470 --> 00:01:36.765 align:middle line:84% at celebration, at transparency, our fought-for 00:01:36.765 --> 00:01:40.140 align:middle line:90% step up from nothingness. 00:01:40.140 --> 00:01:42.930 align:middle line:90% Masked, we forgave them. 00:01:42.930 --> 00:01:46.650 align:middle line:90% Civil wrongs overcome. 00:01:46.650 --> 00:01:48.030 align:middle line:90% Statehood? 00:01:48.030 --> 00:01:51.000 align:middle line:84% No one wants to make the hood a state. 00:01:51.000 --> 00:01:56.640 align:middle line:84% So we skinned ourselves, zipper down the body middle, right 00:01:56.640 --> 00:01:58.950 align:middle line:90% there on the National Mall. 00:01:58.950 --> 00:02:03.120 align:middle line:84% The moment the poet, cold as her tone, 00:02:03.120 --> 00:02:07.050 align:middle line:90% enjambed America with "Love." 00:02:07.050 --> 00:02:10.350 align:middle line:84% Without complexion, though, we looked exactly 00:02:10.350 --> 00:02:13.020 align:middle line:90% like what we had become-- 00:02:13.020 --> 00:02:17.760 align:middle line:90% a clear people, equal to blur. 00:02:17.760 --> 00:02:19.740 align:middle line:90% Sores. 00:02:19.740 --> 00:02:21.590 align:middle line:90% Thank you.