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Last night, Hamiltunes Las Vegas producer Cheryl Daro and I had a meaningful conversation about the current state of things. This morning, I attended a virtual meeting on Black Trauma. I am a poet. I had been refraining from writing about the current state of things. I cannot be silent. I am a poet. Here is my poem.
CLOSED
Doing a check-in with my emotions in an emotional time
Recognizing that feelings of grief and anxiety
Can manifest itself in physical aspects
I respect myself enough to inspect
The effects of the disrespect of society
Upon the concept that black lives matter
How does that affect my daily connect
To associates of different racial construct
I don’t feel the need to instruct anymore
The constant request is becoming a chore
That muscle is sore and you’re not listening
That part of the equation is what is missing
We keep listing the names of the soul siblings
Whose lives are now missing simply because
They look different than the authority
Realizing I look different than the authority
So that produces anxiety and the reality is
I’m exhausted trying to explain that to friends
Captain obvious is at sea again
And we see again
They are killing me again
And again
And again
And I’m tired of explaining why I’m tired
How are you not tired
When do you stop asking and start taking action
Start tasking the authority with policing themselves
Which starts the inevitable journey down the path of history
And the history of the authority is they have been given the authority
With no authority over them
It was and still is their job to hold dominion over the darker skins
Keep dem slaves in line
And that line isn’t as blurred as we would hope
It isn’t eradicated but predicated in the mounting evidenc
That black lives don’t matter as much
So your response that all lives matter is out of touch
Because frankly, no they don’t
And that above statement is predicated by the mountain of evidence
The continuously growing list of names of our soul siblings
Whose lives are missing
Again here you are asking “why”
Wwhy we are angry
Why we are exhausted
Why do we lash out
When the answer is there
In the most common of anecdotes
“Closed mouths don’t get fed”
So we shout
“Feed us equality, feed us justice, feed us as you feed yourself”
But that means you have to examine that your food is different
And expose the lie that we all eat the same
We don’t want you to eat what we are eating
We don’t want to feed you the injustice, the disparity, the Jim Crow laws
The unprovoked killings, the lynching,
The disproportionate incarceration
The financial desperation
The lack of political and social representation
“Closed mouths don’t get fed”
We tried silence
We raised our fists
And you shouted
we sat at counters
And you shouted and spat
We knelt
And you shouted and called us traitors and thugs
So now we shout, again
“Feed us equality, feed us justice, feed us as you feed yourself”
And you seem confused
But closed minds don’t get educated
Closed eyes will never see
Closed lives feel safe and secure
But not all lives are safe and secure
So not all lives matter
So we shout
BLACK LIVES MATTER
Big Sexy was born James R. White in Rialto, CA. He received his BA in Theatre Arts with an emphasis in acting from CSU, San Bernardino. He has worked with Second City, The Groundlings and IO Comedy Sports. He has performed in a variety of shows and musicals including "Keep Hedz Ringin" (A Hip Hop Opera), "The Rocky Horror Show", "Othello", "Hamlet: The Artist Formerly Known as Prince of Denmark", and "The Last Emancipation". In 2009 Big Sexy relocated to Las Vegas. He began hosting with Karate Karaoke and rejoined the improv community, performing with The Lost Episodes, heavy involvement in the All You Can Improv Jam and S.E.T. which were weekly improv shows where he performed with his troupes Big Fun, The Lumberjacks, Phil 'N Sexy and Words With Frienemies. He was a cast member of FREE BEER! The Improv Show, Evil Dead The Musical, The Aussie Improv Comedy Explosion at the V Theater, Alibi The Show. Big Sexy is currently the School Program Director for the Shakespeare Institute of Nevada. He volunteers as an Improv coach at Mojave High School and works with Drama Kids International. Constantly writing he is now writing his first musical "Reservate This!'
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