WEBVTT

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This last poem, this
one's a little expansive.

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Have any of you seen, If
Beale Street Could Talk?

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OK.

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So if not, go see it.

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Any books I've
mentioned, go read them.

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Thirteenth, if I didn't
mention it, go watch it.

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And hopefully there's
just a section

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of this poem that deals
with the Baldwin or Jenkins.

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And hopefully you'll be
able to stay with me,

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and thank you all for listening.

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This is called, "Can't Unsee."

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The eye is a tool.

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It takes available
light and makes notes

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to self about shape, distance,
mood, the self, brain, mind,

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soul.

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Accumulates and cross-references
these observation

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with information from the
ear, the skin, the tongue.

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Turns the memos into
memories we trust to be true.

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What looks like wood will
not give beneath our feet.

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What sounds like a siren
gives cause for alarm.

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We'll be followed by flashing
reds and blues or flames

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or a stretcher and a gun.

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The eye is the open
drawer of a file cabinet

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the size of your
head on the outside

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and the size of your
life on the inside.

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What goes in might get
lost but never goes away.

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"If Beale Street could talk,"
Jenkins says, Baldwin says,

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"it would say, 'soft
sunshine, sweater,

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melting chocolate,'
would whisper,

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'artist's inner eye sends
notes to hands about shapes,

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distances, moods.

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Would speak on woman's
spine, shout about Black

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silence and eloquent
vocal Black eyes."

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Jenkins' Beale
Street says, "see?

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The glow Fonny's eyes emit
when Tish is in view."

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The ideas spinning and
shifting behind them

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when he studies his strange
sculpture in progress.

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See, Tish.

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See Tish discern that glow
through prison plexiglass,

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still smoldering through
a gray wash of gray.

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She can't unsee the lips she
kissed, even when the mauve is

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bashed black, blue.

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And she can't unsee the bruise.

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Meanwhile, Fonny's
eyes are busily

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imprinting on his psyche
brutal scenes that

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befog her face, that twist and
disfigure the structures he

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sculpts in his dreams.

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His visions always
black and white,

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even when they're in color.

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You can't unkill,
and you can't unjail.

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The Constitution
doesn't yet confer on us

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the right not to have to
think about this shit.

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We thumbs-up a
criminal justice system

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with cold-blooded
murderers in mind,

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not the system
we'd like ourselves

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or our kin to fall into.

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Have you ever made a mistake?

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Has a witness ever?

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An officer?

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A jury?

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A judge?

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When we think of violent
crime, if we see Black skin,

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history's whispering its old
lies into our colorblind ears,

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making it easier for us to
say, "better that I'm safe

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and the criminal's sorry than
to waste time uttering the word

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alleged."

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You can't unsee slavery.

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A woman is innocent
until proven angry.

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A man is innocent until
he fits the profile.

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A child is innocent until
she sees her mother or father

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in cuffs.

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Can't unsee.

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Set bail too high,
and in two weeks

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we've upped the odds that
a petty thief becomes

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a well-connected felon with
even more reasons to steal.

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I can't unsee the video
of the school security

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cops slamming an
African-American girl,

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a student, to the ground.

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No, not the North Carolina
one, the South Carolina one.

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No, in Texas the
girl is Latina, but I

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can't unsee her abuse either.

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Race is a tool.

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The law is a tool.

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They take power and
make inhumane order out

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of human chaos.

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They make flaws that will not
give beneath a brown girl's

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skull.

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They make officers see
Black and think, gun.

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What sounds alarming will be
followed by cell phone photos

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and YouTube clips, scenes that
yet another century's minds

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and spirits we'll file away.

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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