Reginald Dwayne Betts: When I Think of Tamir Rice While Driving
When I Think of Tamir Rice While Driving
in the backseat of my car are my own sons,
still not yet Tamir’s age, already having heard
me warn them against playing with toy pistols,
though my rhetoric is always about what I don’t
like, not what I fear, because sometimes
I think of Tamir Rice & shed tears, the weeping
all another insignificance, all another way to avoid
saying what should be said: the Second Amendment
is a ruthless one, the pomp & constitutional circumstance
that says my arms should be heavy with the weight
of a pistol when forced to confront death like
this: a child, a hidden toy gun, an officer that fires
before his heart beats twice. My two young sons play
in the backseat while the video of Tamir dying
plays in my head, & for everything I do know, the thing
I don’t say is that this should not be the brick and mortar
of poetry, the moment when a black father drives
his black sons to school & the thing in the air is the death
of a black boy that the father cannot mention,
because to mention the death is to invite discussion
of taboo: if you touch my sons the crimson
that touches the concrete must belong, at some point,
to you, the police officer who justifies the echo
of the fired pistol; taboo: the thing that says that justice
is a killer’s body mangled and disrupted by bullets
because his mind would not accept the narrative
of your child’s dignity, of his right to life, of his humanity,
and the crystalline brilliance you saw when your boys first breathed;
the narrative must invite more than the children bleeding
on crisp fall days; & this is why I hate it all, the people around me,
the black people who march, the white people who cheer,
the other brown people, Latinos & Asians & all the colors of humanity
that we erase in this American dance around death, as we
are not permitted to articulate the reasons we might yearn
to see a man die; there is so much that has to disappear
for my mind not to abandon sanity: Tamir for instance, everything
about him, even as his face, really and truly reminds me
of my own, in the last photo I took before heading off
to a cell, disappears, and all I have stomach for is blood,
and there is a part of me that wishes that it would go away,
the memories, & that I could abandon all talk of making it right
& justice. But my mind is no sieve & sanity is no elixir & I am bound
to be haunted by the strength that lets Tamir’s father,
mother, kinfolk resist the temptation to turn everything
they see into a grave & make home the series of cells
that so many of my brothers already call their tomb.
Discussion Questions
What was your reaction to this poem? What words or images stood out to you?
How does this poem shape your thinking on our present moment? How might it inform your actions in healthcare or beyond?
Reflections from #MedHumChat
“My reaction: simmering rage. The ripple effect of senseless deaths knows no bounds. When the media attention dies down, families remain in grief, and Black people remain fearful that they will be next.”—@AtashaJordan
“ “graves.’” The legacy of unmarked graves of enslaved ancestors of Black individuals. The complicity of major academic centers in profiting off of slavery. The untold story of American towns sitting atop graves, ignore history & continue to perpetuate anti-Black racism”—@akilaally
“ "this is why I hate it all." I appreciate how raw this is. He articulates emotions (anger, hate) that there is so much social pressure to hide, especially for Black men. It feels very vulnerable and thus very, very human”—@colleenmfarrell
About this #MedHumChat
“When I Think of Tamir Rice While Driving” was paired with two other poems, “where our protest sound” by Lenelle Moïse and “Let America Be America Again” by Langston Hughes, for a #MedHumChat discussion on June 3rd, 2020 exploring Racism, Police Violence, and the Struggle for Justice.
About the Author
Reginald Dwayne Betts (@dwaynebetts) is an American poet, memoirist, and teacher. He was incarcerated for 8 years as a teenager, going on to graduate from Yale Law School. He has worked as a public defender and advocate for criminal justice reform. You can learn more about his story in this New Yorker article.