Black 101 by Frank X Walker

“How are you afraid of a man running away from you?”

- Toni Morrison

Fear is a magnetizer.

It changes the polarity of black bodies.

Makes them highly attractive to

bullets, police batons, tasers,

white rage, white guilt,

and blue-eyed blondes.

Fear is a multiplier.

It turns children into men,

men and women into monsters,

and non-compliant teens

into dangerous gangs

and threatening mobs.

Fear is a magician.

It turns Hip Hop into gangster rap,

plastic toys into guns,

cigarillos, cellphones,

wallets, brazenness,

and extended index fingers

into high caliber weapons.

Fear is a revisionist history class.

It turns people of color into the

enslavers, confederate soldiers,

lynch mobs, klansmen, night riders

and terrorists.

Fear is a sniper.

It takes dead aim, aims to kill,

kills for sport and pleasure,

is pleased to take souvenirs,

and stuffs and mounts its trophies.

Biography:

Frank X Walker is the author of seven collections of poetry, including About Flight (Accents, 2015). Former Poet Laureate of Kentucky, he is the founder of Affrilachian Poets and a professor in the English Department and African American and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky.