Taye Diggs recently wrote one of the most heartbreaking poems on police brutality inspired by the recent killings of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling.
Taye wrote the poem from the point of view of a young boy who tries to figure out what’s happening while his parents watch the news of another young black man killed at the hands of the police.
Read the poem below:
I’m finished brushing my teeth
I’m coming down the stairs
I’m ready for my bedtime story
Does anybody care
I’m standing in my P. J.s
My bunny slippers on
But Ma and Pa are watching tv
I think something’s wrong
Why is mommy crying Pa
She’s pointing at the screen
It’s like she knows them people
People I never seen
And why does daddy look so mad
Mommy do you know
He keeps on rubbing the side of his head
And walking to and fro
What is this tv show
And now I start to feel real weird
My insides getting heavy
I yell at mommy one more time
Daddy are you forgetting
Mama slowly turns to me
Her face fighting the tear
She cut the tv off right quick
She kneels and pulls me near
Why is daddy leaving the room
Why did he slam the door
Mommy searches for her words
In the matted carpeted floor
Honey something very bad happened
We didn’t want you to see
But we just saw a man get shot
Right on our colored tv
Why would someone shoot that man
You both said guns were not good
Did the man steal or rob someone
Was he not doing what he should
Then I feel my mama’s anger
The straight stiff of her back
No she hissed through her teeth
Police shot him cuz he was black
I tilt my head with question
As Daddy enters still blue
But my skins dark just like the Man’s
Does that mean I’ll die too?
Ma and pa stare at each other
Blank scared looks on the front of their heads
Neither of them could say a word
As I imagine myself……. Dead.
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