Transcriber: William Fodor Reviewer: Denise RQ
If you can hear the sound of my voice clap one time.
If you can hear the sound of my voice clap two times.
Ladies, Gentlemen, or genders in between, non gender, binary,
if you're feeling good say yeah! (Audience) Yeah!
So this is for the days when poetry becomes reconstructive surgery
for the gaping spirit,
when prayers go where hands can't,
when my black may be the color of reason,
and my name could snap a trigger for all the loved ones who did not come home.
For all of the times I had to learn how to offer myself back to myself.
See, there will be many of these days,
when you would feel beaten down by the weight of your own galaxy
like a shooting star emptying itself into the sky,
but can't nobody tell you how to defy.
Can't nobody tell you how to be fly.
Can't nobody try to clip your wings
when you never needed them to leave gravity behind.
See, this world's favorite song
will try to dance your flesh into an illusion,
but your skin, your skin is made of dreams that turn into songs,
that turn into a laughter that turn into a song.
So sing; for anytime they try to silence your thunderous cry,
and if they throw you shade, if they throw you shade
you peel back your name and show them how it is a sunrise,
it is a reason to wake up every morning.
You are a reason to wake up every morning,
you are a reason to wake up every morning,
that's why I offer you this language.
In remembrance of you,
of the breath of a survivor, and the miracle of a smile,
know that when these days come, your story would have just begun.
And so my story begins in Yaoundé, Cameroon,
which is where I was originally born and raised.
I remember being so enamored with the way that a lot of our elders
and a lot of our oral traditionalists would speak and tell so many stories
about our land, about our home, about the places that we come from,
about our culture, and how so much of that taught me about language being a tool
not just for communication but also a vehicle for culture.
I remember how they would say
that a lot of our elders and a lot of our ancestors,
when they would try to orient themselves throughout the land,
they would do it by remembering the songs that they had written about the land.
Very detailed, full of imagery
about all of the landscapes and all of the places that they had been,
and that is how they would remember how to get themselves home,
by remembering these songs.
When I think about all of the languages of the homes
that we have made for ourselves,
I then think about what will happen when our homes start to lose those languages;
what will happen when our homes start to lose those identities,
start to lose the cultures and everything that they are made of.
And so I remember the first time when I was told,
"Hey, we're about to go to US,
and you're about to move there,"
and it was so exciting and awesome because all I could think about was
"Hey, well, if America is anything like Beverly Hills 90210,
then it's going to be great."
(Laughter)
I was like "Yo, as soon as we get off the airplane, once we get down,
they'll give us a key to a big old house, we will have two cars,
a little tiny cute dog, and it's going to be fantastic."
We finally get off the plane at Dallas, and then you know we're driving through,
and I'm like, "Oh, yeah, so far so good, OK I'm there."
Then we end up - this is '98 in northeast DC -
I'm looking around, and I'm like, "Somebody has lied to me."
(Laughter)
This is not what I was expecting,
but I had to adapt, I had to adapt.
"If this is will be my new home, then I'll embrace all about this place.
I will embrace everything about its culture,
everything about its vibrant history,
everything about all of the colorful things that make this city."
I've grown to love it so much,
but now I think how in all the years I've been here,
this city has changed quite a lot,
in a way I almost do not recognize it.
That makes me think again
that my home, my second home, is starting to lose its language,
and I don't want that to happen
because especially for us as storytellers, as the creators, as the creative ones,
the ones that were often tasked
with the responsibility of carrying those stories
and making sure that those stories were not lost or forgotten,
because it is through those stories we know ourselves and have our identities.
I thought that I had that responsibility
as now myself being a storyteller and a writer
to make sure that people know of the language of this city.
That my children, and our children's children,
know exactly where they come from.
So one of the things that I love most about DC culture was go-go,
go-go music as told by the famous godfather of go-go, Chuck Brown.
He would have this song where he'd say,
"And it don't mean a thing,
if it ain't got the go-go swing.
Do-wap, do-wap, do-wap, do-wap, do-wap, do-wap."
Clear!
In 1790, Alexander Hamilton proposed
that the capital of the United Stated be on federal land, giving it no statehood.
This was the preoperative period. Welcome to America's purgatory.
See, the city has become an illusion, a magic trick gone awry,
tummy-tucked behind a Capitol Hill.
In 1814, the redcoats set you on fire;
the burning of Washington, first operation,
and you've been addicted to the surgery ever since with no anaesthesia.
They're trying to make monsters out of you from the district, to district 9,
as if you were ever ugly, the blemishes of your roads swept under cherry blossoms.
See, you're nice to look at, but they're only here for your sightseeing;
DC, you've become a trophy wife.
Minority-owned businesses cut under the scalpels of high-rises
before your street became their street.
Well, let them have a few Ethiopian restaurants here, a carry out or two there
because we all like good old Mumbo sauce!
But most times, most times, this city has nothing to smile about.
In 1968, Dr. King was assassinated, race riots ensued for five days,
and the inner city economy never crossed the finish line.
Surgery number two: the addiction continued in a city so violent,
they sought to go from bullets to wizards.
Ironic how the same Black magic still happens.
We are still disappearing under a new form of violence;
same aim, but a different kind of target.
But don't expect more, facelift the streets and bleach all of the borders;
chocolate city is melting.
Liposuction via housing prices relative to income.
You already can't vote, what makes you think that you're allowed to live here?
This city, this city has had the gentries with a light go,
spreading at the speed of a slow wildfire,
buying into a future that is blocked from the rest of us.
See, we're losing the city, we're losing the city; resuscitate.
Clear! Nip tuck the schools
because a segregated education makes for a better segregated outcome.
Clear, taxation without representation.
Clear, replace whole bodies with whole foods.
Clear, we want our cities back so that we can finally know again who we are.
We want our homes back,
like Portland, Philadelphia, Oakland, Detroit, Austin, Harlem, like DC.
We want our language back.
Clear, how many lives will it cost to augment a metropolis
when our businesses do not need a Botox,
our culture does not need a collagen of politicians and developers
playing surgeons reconstructing the go-go soul of our land.
Gentrification by incision of jackhammer,
turning the city into an illusion, a magic trick gone awry,
because It don't mean a thing, if it ain't go the go-go swing,
Do-wap, do-wap, do-wap, do-wap, do-wap, do-wap ...
Clear.
Thank you.
(Applause)