WEBVTT

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This next one is called
"The Violence of Pronoun."

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I wrote it once listening
to a group of students

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talking in the cafeteria.

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And they were just
responding to being

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Black students in a
predominantly white campus.

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And I just listen to
things they had to say.

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And in the process of doing
that, what I tried to do

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is take the issues
that they were

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dealing with in this run it nail
up or a voice that would speak.

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Think of some particular
incidents that I knew about.

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And just bring the boys to life.

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It's called The
Violence of Pronoun.

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Loving came her way vicious.

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It rose up from the Earth
and made her father's hand

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around her throat a bird of prey
and carried her away in mind

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like a limp patient.

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He was not drunk.

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It is worse.

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In this world, we cannot feel.

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In my sociology class for
understanding Black folks,

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they try to understand
our homes like buckshot.

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What we have done to
love is unforgivable.

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They took out rakes and
treated us like dirt.

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It was so perfect.

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They asked for grades.

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Leaving people out of
this, I can forgive.

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I married her anyway.

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And in the church when
I unfolded her hand,

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I saw it in her palm the way
she would die leaping out

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of democracy through
some weird window,

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white with the wilderness
of God 1965 Memorial Day.

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And I went on crazy at first.

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And crazy even now
for being so militant.

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What I told that class
they said it hurt.

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It is our innocence
that makes us vicious.

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