Excerpt from Acquitted:
(Written in memory of Amadou Diallo after the acquittal of the four police officers who shot at him 41 times
killing him outside of his apartment in New York City on February 4, 1999.)
What triggers them to keep firing?
Centuries of familiarity
Ancestors’ memories
Comforting knowledge of a history of acquittals
Won
When Black families sought white justice
In courtrooms built on the backs of Black blood
Where victims are virtuously white
And scapegoats systematically Black?
Bang Bang Bang
By now a callous must have formed
To provide protection for the sensitive skin
Between the two joints of the
Index trigger finger.
But how thick must the
Callous covering common sense
Be to permit the continuous shooting
Of a corpse?
Bang Bang Bang