self-portrait as a constant point of contention
BY CORTNEY LAMAR CHARLESTON
We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred,
bigotry and violence, on many sides. On many sides…
—Donald Trump
Here in the United States, African American means
argument—what they say about “you people” versus
what I know about my people—
but argument, mathematically speaking, means a specific input
in a function, what bears a defined relationship to
the output, but I’m not a good mathematician even on
my brokest days; I’m an African American
meaning I’m angry at the function of something. And here,
in the United States, a man inputs a key into the ignition
and outputs the life from a body:
puts the life in a body outside of that body, turns it into
an argument though the body nor the life formerly inside it
were African American; they were simply American—
meaning white—and woman—meaning object—
before they were ever an argument meaning African
American, meaning maybe everyone becomes African
American when they die senselessly, or that
African Americans are already dead due to senselessness, or that
African Americans have always been white objects
in addition to arguments, but I’m not a good mathematician even
on my richest days; I’m African American meaning
I’m angry at the function of something, and yet
this means I may be an object used for a specific function
to get a specific output, making me, more or less, a vehicle
like the Dodge Challenger that started this latest round,
meaning it gave birth to something even as something died,
and I’m angry at the function of something in that statement
because it should be someone died: a woman, a human being—
but I’m African American so even that assertion becomes
an argument on top of an argument already against me,
and I’m angry about that because here, in the United States,
blood is never literal if it is mine or approximates mine
like the president said by saying nothing of good conscience,
sparking even more arguments, meaning more
bodies, maybe, and I’m African American so I’m growing
angrier at the function of something:
the whistle that brings the rabid dogs to my doorstep,
the billionaire businessman who blew it.
