Things I thought when I watched
the cops arrest some boys for
stealing bikes on 55th street
By Theodore Richards
where his mother is
his father
& if they will cry when they see him in a cage
all the fuckery I engaged in when I was 15
& no one put me in handcuffs
& how it must hurt so much
for a soaking-wet-120-pound boy
to be slammed to the ground
& pinned
by 3 grown men
& how long that pain will endure
in mind
& in chemical reactions
embodied memories
long after the bruises have healed
how carefully manicured the church lawn is
backdrop to brutality
(jesus never comes out
to admonish the centurions)
of the cops
& their rage
& the absurdity of their work
in a world in which kids stealing bikes leads to
privatized state violence
& handcuffs
& guns drawn:
they must be so unhappy
must hear the black girl
hair in a bonnet
shout FUCK 12 as she drives past
of liberal hyde park,
its bought-and-paid-for-private police force.
they are thinking (they don’t shout):
why can’t they just be like obama?
but mostly, i think of my own daughter
standing next to me
watching
& wonder what she makes of all this
wonder
if she sees police as potential protectors
or these boys as potential friends
& how hard it will be to move in a world
in which these contradictions are
embedded in her skin
A Reading of Things I Thought
by the author Theodore Richards
Re-sources
Re-Imagining Education
Empowering educators to take a deeper look at the stories told in our schools and to re-imagine them in transformative and
nurturing learning spaces.
Learning Opportunities
Classes, workshops, and lectures that help to empower people to re-imagine who they are and their place in the world.
CWP
The Chicago Wisdom Project offers a alternative to the industrial and corporate models of education that have become increasingly prevalent in the American educational landscape.