Carlos Andres Gomez - What's genocide? lyrics

Their high school principal told me I couldn't teach poetry with profanity so I asked my students, Raise your hand if you've heard of the Holocaust. In unison, their arms rose up like poisonous gas then straightened out like an SS infantry, Okay. Please put your hands down. Now raise your hand if you've heard of the Rwandan genocide. Blank stares, mixed with curious ignorance. A quivering hand out of the crowd halfway raised, like a lone survivor struggling to stand up in Kigali, Luz, are you sure about that? No. That's what I thought. Carlos – what's genocide? They won't let you hear the truth at school if a person says f**. Can't even talk about f** even though a third of your senior cla** is pregnant. I can't teach an 18 year-old girl in a public school how to use a condom that will save her life and that of the orphan she will be forced to give to the foster care system – Carlos, how many 13 year-olds do you know that are HIV positive? Honestly, none. But I do visit a shelter every Monday and talk with six 12 year-old girls with diagnosed AIDS while 4th graders three blocks away give little boys bl**jobs during recess. I met an 11 year-old gang member in the south Bronx who carries a semi-automatic weapon to study hall so he can make it home. And you want me to censor my language? Carlos, what's genocide? Your books leave out Emmett Till and Medgar Evers. Call themselves World History and don't mention King Leopold or diamond mines. Call themselves Politics in the Modern World and don't mention Apartheid. Carlos, what's genocide? You wonder why children hide in adult bodies. Lie under light-color-eyed contact lenses. Learn to fetishize the size of their a** and simultaneously hate their lips. My students thought Che Guevara was a rapper from East Harlem; still think my Mumia t-shirt is of Bob Marley; how can literacy not include Phillis Wheatley? Schools were built in the shadows of ghosts. Filtered through incest and grinding teeth, molded under veils of extravagant ritual. Carlos, what's genocide? Roselyn, how old was she? ¿Cuántos años tuvo tu madre cuando se murió? My mother had 32 years when she died. Ella era bellísima. …what's genocide? They've moved on from sterilizing boriqua women. Injecting indigenous sisters with Hepatitis B – now they just k** mothers with silent poison, stain their loyalty and love into veins and suffocate them. …what's genocide? Ridwan's father hung himself in the box because he thought his son was ashamed him. …what's genocide? Maureen's mother gave her skin lightening cream the day before she started the 6th grade. …what's genocide? She carves straight lines into her beautiful brown thighs so she can remember what it feels like to heal. …what's genocide? …what's genocide? Carlos, what's genocide? Luz, this… this right here… is genocide. Reposted from: http://carlosandresgomez.tumblr.com/poems