1st Place Finishers
The Post-Op Complications of Mississippi Appendectomies
The Post-Op Complications of Mississippi Appendectomies by Nia Jolivet
Western School of Technology and Environmental Science - Grade 12, Teacher Katherine Lewis
“The practice was so commonly performed on poor black women that it was nicknamed a ‘Mississippi Appendectomy.'" ~Rosalind Early
Once Incubators and mules,
Then “freedom” arrived and they realized the danger liberty could possess.
No longer productive or useful.
So, they plundered our wombs.
Agency did not benefit them.
Poor, feeble-minded, black.
What value does she have if she's not useful?
So, they plundered our wombs.
Thirty-three states with the legislation sutured into their histories.
Eugenics as their means of protecting their empire.
Each law signed with the blood and history
Of the Mississippi Appendectomy.
Never feign surprise over the extent the state would take
To enact control over our bodies.
Although in a different way, even today
They plunder our wombs.
Words of the Resilient
Words of the Resilient by Vianney Juarez
Western School of Technology - Grade 9, Teacher Joshua Conner
A severe look in your eyes reminded me of the words I’ve always wanted to ignore
words of pain that have ingrained years of disturbance
A story that is embedded in ten thousand ears
that remain deaf to the loud sounds of the oppressor.
Since that day looking at the moon in June,
I knew I would be looked at with eyes full of animosity
because of my beautiful glowing skin
Skin that can’t be tamed
This skin is a book full of words of resilience
with all that I am,
and whom I was destined to be.
The skin that makes us powerful
And our beauty it proclaims.
For the way our gorgeous curls bounce around our head, and the way our bodies glow in the sun,
Accompanying the sound of the moon
A journey is told.
Our mouths portray a reflection of our ancestors
Our minds behold the truth
To which Our voices allow us to say
You the hypocrite
You the offender
You the atrocious
How can we call you to “save the day”?
How can we look at you and forget the shameful scar upon your hand?
How can we believe you will protect us?
When all you do is reject us and say
“you don’t matter”
“you’re not worthy”
in which poisonous way you say “you don’t belong”
“you shouldn’t be here”.
And in that moment, between the shame and the pain,
The strength of my ancestors rises my body
And reincarnate; the stories in my soul
Because I do matter,
I am worthy
And I do belong.
The fear in your eyes will always remind me
That there is a path of unhealed journeys
On which I walk
Gracefully
Reminding you with every step
That I will not be leaving
And I am here to stay.
Remember the Birmingham Church
Remember the Birmingham Church by Lila Galli
Dumbarton Middle School - Grade 8, Teacher Brian Bauer
Remember the Birmingham church?
The one that blew up in the past?
There was no time for the girls to flee,
no time for them to see,
those moments in the church would be their last.
Remember the life that was taken,
blown away like a sail at sea.
The girls getting ready to sing in the choir,
instead their souls were set free.
Remember the voices that were ripped from their chests,
unfairly on that warm September day.
The joy on their faces, the light in their laughs
have now all fallen astray.
Remember the guilt of their mothers.
The pain in their chests when they were told.
Their daughters had just gone to sing at the church,
but now they won’t get to grow old.
Remember the cries from Sara,
the lone survivor who watched the police search.
She may have survived, but a piece of her died,
and is stuck, locked up in that church.
Most importantly, remember their beauty.
Their dark skin and jet black hair.
I wish everyone could see the beauty of them,
too many see it as a reason to kill.
So next time you hear the church bells ring,
or listen to the choir sing.
Remember the girls who are no longer here,
and remember the mothers who live in fear.
All because of the color of one's skin.
Although the girls died decades ago,
racism is still alive.
Everyday it grows and grows,
claiming more victims without reason.
These victims are still fighting for a chance to thrive.
They are still fighting for the chance to stay alive,
still trying to help parents who mourn,
still trying to save the children who are born
into a world where the color of your skin is what defines you.
To end this cycle of injustice,
we must remember the past to build a better future,
to build a new world that focuses on successes and achievements,
a world where parents aren’t afraid to send their children out alone.
Let’s create a world where the color of your skin doesn’t decide
if you get to live,
or you die.
2nd Place Finishers
Our Power
Our Power by Kayla Tabernero
Parkville High School - Grade 11, Teacher Virginia Richard
Black people contain a magnificent power,
That emerges from our ancestors’ buried remains
Consuming the pain and darkness that came before
So that we may rise into a bountiful golden world.
Day by day, our strength continues to oppose
The chains of our ancestors
From proving our capabilities in the world that denies it
To fighting for our lives against the white brutality that slaughters it
However, our power isn’t limitless,
As we trudge this earth with a target shrouded in black skin
And living underneath a system willing to take aim
Our backs break, releasing a crunch heard all too well by our ancestors.
For we are not invincible
We need more than our simple determination and power
We as a nation must rise united to speak of the oppression
That has plagued our nation for centuries.
Without speaking, fighting, and destroying the system that upholds the white majority
How will we ever rid our backs of the bonds that oppressed our ancestors long ago?
White people and marginalized communities alike
Must recognize the privilege and power they hold
They must say the names of those they let die
Breonna Taylor
George Floyd
Oscar Grant
Aiyana Jones
While our power may have sustained our lives for centuries
We need the rest of America to acknowledge that
black power and black rights are just as unalienable as white rights
For our power may be magnificent, but the unification
And collaboration of the entire American people
Will merely make our power shine brighter
In Regards to That - The White King's Birthright
In Regards to That – The White King’s Birthright by Ariel Thomas
Western School of Technology - Grade 10, Teacher Melanie Coats
I hate that.
I hate how you get to be fine all the time.
I hate how you can run away from the world
When the world has me chained by the ankle
And the most I can do is rub my fingers raw
Nails sawing at the Iron
Hoping, praying for a fracture.
I hate that you work hard and get what you deserve.
I hate that you quit trying and get what you don't.
I’ve worked hard. And after that failed me I quit trying. And I worked and I quit and I worked and I quit and I worked and I quit and I will never get that ease.
The stars were made for the shells of your palms, they were made for you and you alone.
You pick the fruit of the sky and hold it close to keep you warm in the heart of the cold months, keep you fat and fed on holy ichor
But my hands weren't made to breach heaven.
So when I reach up to them,
As far as my arms will allow
Until the tissue strains in protest,
My fingers only brush the stardust
And it turns the tips to ash
That blows away in a winter breeze
Under a lightless, stolen sky.
.
I wish I could deconstruct you
And feed your salvage back to the universe
So the children of the stars could finally return to their mothers
And their mothers could bask in a light bright enough to blind the world.
Sometimes it makes me feel
Makes me feel so much so fast
I find myself forgetting to think
But I have to stop myself because if that isn't exactly what you expect from me.
Isn’t it?
But I’m not a horror.
I am not terror.
I am not a monster hiding under under your beds
For as long as I am not forced there in righteous rebellion
To your persecution and torment
I am human just as you.
And after every fix of chain,
Every tie of rope,
Every crack of gunfire,
Over hundreds of painful years,
We sit in a place of division we can never recover from.
Yet even still,
Unchangeable,
That fact rings true.
I call out my grievances to you, screaming to be heard,
“Don’t you know the bones you bury are mirrors of your own?
The blood on your hands matches yours in color?
You cannot bury the hatchet when your victims are buried three feet beneath.”
Not a sound returns to me now, but I overlook this, patient.
My voice will carry on the wind
To fanatics and advocates, believers and sycophants, passionate soldiers
Of my face and yours alike
And we will fight to fill the cavernous divide together,
Because wasn’t the sky and all the precious stars beyond it
Perfectly fitting for my hands, soft enough to warm me, my birthright,
Just as it was yours?
Once at even ground, where will we stand?
Will i even live to see this war end,
And can this wound even ever be healed?
For a moment a glimpse such a prophecy—
And for a moment, let’s pretend it’s emphatically true—
Passes through me, and I let myself be moved by it.
There is one being, one thing, as there always has been
You, me, kinsfolk of mine and yours,
Mothers, daughters, neighbors, workers,
Young spirits and older ones
Romantics and empaths, poets, soldiers as well (though here they rest— their work finally over)
Those you know, those you don’t, those you never will
All one thing, in one place, under a sky that is as endlessly bright and impossibly beautiful
As it was the day we first laid eyes on it.
There are many hands in only two, many perceptions in one head
And for a moment
It feels as if there are two hearts
Beating within one chest.
We Are All Human
We Are All Human by Charlotte Librizzi
Dumbarton Middle School - Grade 8, Teacher Susan Smith
He swallows his words, with the fear of saying the wrong thing
Hoping no one will stop him as his footsteps quicken
Holding back tears as his eyes turn red
He remembers what it looks like to see his friend shot dead
His quicken steps turn into a sprint
His eyes starting to squint
As he runs his vision blurs
He knows if he gets stopped
They would think the worst
He might end up like his friend, stuck in a hearse
Hoping one day everyone will be seen the same
But for right now no one knows his name
Shot dead in his home with no one to save him
He sits alone in his pool of blood
Hoping one day there will be someone to blame
As he sits sirens ring and he hears the faint sing
Inside the court, the sobbing begins
Not being able to hold it in
He starts to yell
From that point on, he knew he would never win
Remembering what it looked like to see that disgusting face
The face that shot his friend dead
The face he can’t seem to get out of his head
Thanks to him, he will never forget
The cop that shot him dead
Over a simple cell phone and cigarette