By Button Poetry
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TaneshaNicole, performing at Park Square Theater in St. Paul, MN.
Transcript provided by YouTube:
00:01
I can hear my people crying I can’t
00:06
breathe now I’m in the struggle and I
00:12
can’t leave calling out their violence
00:17
and I pray Hittle sings
00:21
we ain’t gonna stop to our people huh
00:26
free
00:27
we ain’t gonna stop to our people huh
00:31
free this newfound mantra is all I have
00:34
left to hold on to as we march in
00:36
protest swing the walls of injustice
00:38
down but I’m tired of marching tired of
00:41
marching for something that should have
00:42
been ours at birth I am so goddamn tired
00:45
of being told to quit pulling the race
00:47
card because I am light-skinned is
00:50
assumed my future is bright I am tired
00:52
of being told the reason I can’t see
00:54
this future they speak of is because I
00:56
can’t let go of the past but letting go
00:58
of the past means letting go of December
01:00
1st 1955 Rosa Parks refuses to give up
01:03
her seat when instructed by a Montgomery
01:04
bus driver being a 381 day boycott
01:06
September 1957 nine african-american
01:10
students walk into an all-white High
01:11
School in Little Rock Arkansas February
01:13
1st 1960 the Greensboro student movement
01:16
begins July 2nd 1964 the first civil
01:19
rights act is passed April 4th 1968
01:22
Martin Luther King is assassinated seven
01:25
days later on April 11th 1968 the second
01:28
civil rights act is enacted letting go
01:30
of the past means letting go of our
01:31
progress but without that progress I
01:33
wouldn’t be standing here today but
01:35
that’s not enough fast forward to the
01:37
summer of 1991 my parents are featured
01:40
on a new segment about interracial
01:41
dating and the interviewer blatantly
01:44
asks my father so what’s it like to date
01:46
a white woman to which my father
01:48
responds I am NOT dating a white woman
01:50
I’m dating a woman I love who happens to
01:53
be white an amusement-park 2001 my
01:56
sisters and I are screaming for our mom
01:58
but the right operator won’t let X go to
01:59
her until my father comes from the other
02:01
side of the park to verify that she is
02:03
not trying to kidnap us it is 2020 and I
02:06
and still hyper aware of how quickly my
02:08
hands missed a pocket for wallet I never
02:11
carry bills over 20 on me because I’m
02:13
reminded of the time when I
02:14
to a Walmart up the street from my house
02:16
handed the cashier the 50 that I had
02:18
only for her to check it three times
02:20
have her fellow so she check it twice
02:22
before accepting it and giving me my
02:25
change I’m tired of having to
02:29
take precautions to be sure that I don’t
02:31
end up as another headline in the news
02:33
or a hashtag on Twitter I am tired for
02:35
fighting for this basic human experience
02:37
and I am tired of marching tired of
02:40
marching and feeling like we never move
02:42
forward but the March will go on cuz we
02:45
ain’t gonna stop til her people are free
02:47
no we ain’t gonna stop to our people huh
02:52
free
02:54
[Applause]
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This post was previously published on YouTube.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video
