- For those of y'all who don't know,
the term "on sight", right?
Is when, like,
you like,
run into a person that you have problems with,
and you immediately break out into a scrap
without words or warning, i.e.,
i.e.,
Tom and Jerry. (audience laughs)
Real Housewives of Anywhere. (audience laughs)
Or, when you see a bug.
Ants,
spiders,
on sight.
Water bugs,
cockroaches,
on sight.
Mosquitoes,
locust,
on sight.
Fun fact,
did y'all know that the rainbow milkweed locust
is also known as the toxic beauty?
Since its skin
is adorned with all of the colors of the rainbow
to warn predators that they are the most toxic.
Meaning, that the prettier something is, the more dangerous.
I was,
10 years pretty,
when my family moved me to the States.
In 2010,
I was detained because,
my colorful passport made me a toxic beauty.
Suddenly, I was the locust who migrated too far
to eat crumbs of American pie,
until diaspora was a stinger in my throat.
So,
when the president says,
immigrants are infesting the US,
what he means is,
they want to make America ugly again.
What he means is,
give me all of your tired,
your poor,
and I will huddle them in masses
until they yearn to breathe free again.
Immigration policy for black and brown people
is just another form of pest control so,
it's on sight every time they see us.
When all we want to do is go to school,
to work, to church or mind our own goddamn business
without exterminators being called.
To kill bugs dead,
they raid us.
Spray first, ask for status and humanity later.
Saying that they were afraid for their lives.
They were afraid we're gonna feast on all of their harvest.
But how can we both be lazy,
and be the life blood of the hive?
When the real buzz,
is that America would rather make all of its honey
from filling prison beds.
So,
we can't talk about abolishing ice
without also talking about the war on drugs,
human trafficking,
the school to prison pipeline,
stolen indigenous land,
and anti-blackness that has harvested bodies for generations
from a constitution used as pesticide.
Maybe,
maybe,
we should call racism "entomophobia."
The fear of bugs.
The fear,
that has my uncle waiting 17 years like a Cicada
for his citizenship,
just so he could fly again,
or,
the fear that leaves a border,
turned bug zapper
as a mother is forced
to watch her 19-month old baby die in her arms.
So,
what else is there to do,
but adapt,
evolve,
take all of the poison
the world feeds us
and forge it into a gorgeous armor.
So we say,
it's on sight for you.
Build your wall,
and we will just fly first class over that motherfucker,
over all of this land that you have plunged in death.
You think that we scared of you?
You think that we are afraid of death?
Don't you know,
that we shed just to become again every single day?
Do you know what happens to a carcass
when the maggots crawl
and the flies begin to swarm?
They feast on the dying thing,
offer the marrow back to the earth
just so it could grow something beautiful again.
So we say,
it's on sight for you.
We take back all of our pretty,
our culture,
our language
and the spices you don't use.
We say, (audience cheers)
we say it's on sight for you, America.
And we will see how much that God of yours
really don't like ugly.
(audience cheers)