SURVEILLANCE: The Public is Generally Self-Taught and Uninformed

Sometimes there is silence
after a video is released   You want to describe it
as grief or disbelief or trauma.
Yes   (All of these)
You wonder if there will be protests—stunts that take
up so much public space   You feel like a responsible person
because you’re thinking of the immediate social impact
To be fair you would need to consider the history
of policing and a chattel system
You quickly find you don’t have time for that

*****

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For 10 weeks, we will feature one poem per week from Surveillance, the new chapbook available now from Writ Large Press. These poems by Ashaki M. Jackson explore police killings of Blacks captured on video and the public’s consumption of these videos. Previous poems: 12345, 6

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