I always appreciate
An opportunity to
Provide clarity
To make more
Sense when
There is none
A complete
Opposite (it seems)
From UCI
Neuroresearch teams
See the only point
And reason for this
Song is a Black man
Named Mike Brown
Who was murdered by
Police going to the
Store
Just like I and
Too many Other Black folks
Fear and dread
But This Mike Brown
Was only 18 years Old
And was shot to death
A baby boy with
Baby boy cheeks
Who people said
Was real nice
And real sweet
But didn’t matter
To Ferguson police
These Beverly Hills
Cop wannabes
These trigger happy
Cops outside of
Grocery stops
So this man, nearly a boy
Was shot dead
AND THEN?
Left dead in the street!
Left dead for hours alone
Where his family could see him
But they were not allowed to reach him!
This boy deserved more!
And so he sparked a
Revolution in his name
Never forget the black man
With baby boy cheeks
The Beloved Mike Brown
The neuro
Researchers
At UCI
Must have forgotten this
Or not really cared
How the impact of Black Death
Black trauma
Black pain
black grief
would be responded to
Particularly by me
Faith Cheltenham
Who sat at my desk
sharing posts
and raising funds,
who helped see the busses
fill up with people on fire
for Black souls the week
we lost Mike Brown
So If asked to remember in detail
About Mike Brown?
Well that’s like taking me
Right back
to that pain point here
(right in my chest).
And that’s the point
Of the research
These scientists do
To study brains of
People like me who say they remember
All the time
(Us Griot holding memory)
Only these researchers can forget
Only these researchers do forget
So they built a computer to create questions
An AI designed to traumatize specifically
Ouch I said not so effing polite
Oops they said,
and they said
they’d stop and fix it
So no one else hopefully
conjures Mike Brown
Besides his family
His people
His community
And all the real
STL and Ferguson
Legitimates
So they said they’d stop
So they said
But Mike Brown is dead
They asked me instead
To help them choose
Better questions
But Mike Brown is dead
And what will any of their queries do
To change that?
In fact? Aren’t they more
White people and light people
Wasting my whole Black time?
Shouldn’t I do research
Only with Black people
Or other hyperthyms
Or more frequently
Entirely Alone?
Why ever would I wish
To go so slowly as
the normal humans do?
That’s a death sentence
For me, and my kind.
(Possibly also for you)
Working with researchers
Who see memory like a dream
Instead of a functional
Super highway or galaxy
Or enormous swimmable sea
Is troubling
Working with researchers
Who have no memory
May be even worse
Which of course is why I am
Reporting to you all
my own UCI trauma
Because Mike Brown is dead
And his name should
Only be read by lips of his family
Not slipped in like nothing
Not to be remembered
Only as a baby boy under the sheet
I am so done supporting research
That accidentally supports harm
Nor research that makes little sense
To the people it impacts
And the people it is for
Instead I will keep working
On ways to increase human
Capacity for memory
By identifying
That the neuro researchers
At UCI totally and 100% suck
Until I see how they’ve
Upended their approach
And used community guidance
And spoken with people like me
To change how their research is designed
I’m not a lab rat
I’m not the one
to be studied like that
And no human is
Mike Brown is dead
But Ferguson still lives
And St. Louis and all
Black people deserve identifiable support
Not the continued use of Black names
To scrawl on the marching shoes
white people used when they was in "lockup"
Cause of course ain’t seen none of you
marching for Black lives ever since
George Floyd.
Performance noted
Ally card pulled
Faith Cheltenham
grades you poorly
Class dismissed.