HARD FACTS 3 (DO NOT RESIST)
To stay alive do not resist
that’s what you’re told
as if it were a simple act to make yourself
be only meat
and bone
pressed down into an asphalt street
and not a form of suicide
erase yourself be dead enough
that he or she or they’ll decide
there is no need to kill you
though do not resist
can make no guarantee of this
but if you stay alive
do not resist will mean you have to stand
your dead self up
walk out into the world alive
which is another kind of death
and harder every single time
you have to kill yourself enough
(do not resist) to stay alive.
—Poets Respond
September 25, 2016
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Hayden Saunier: “Two more police shootings … ‘Do not resist’ saved my life years ago when I was raped at knifepoint. Black men and women have historically, repeatedly, and continue to this day to be asked to submit their bodies and selves to the total control of another person under threat of immediate death. It isn’t easy, doesn’t always work, and even when it does, the toll is devastating.” (website)
