I have to see that I do not Lend
Myself to the Wrong I Condemn²
I See their Needs & Act to meet them³
Can I see another’s Woe, and not be in
Sorrow too? Can I see Another’s Grief
And not seek for Kind Relief? Can I see a
Falling Tear, and not feel my Sorrows share?⁴
The Hands of none of us are Clean if we Bend
Not our Energies to Righting these great Wrongs⁵
Those who Profess to favor Freedom, and yet they
Depreciate Agitation, want Crops without Plowing⁶
The Choice: to Speak or Not to speak, we Speak –
Whose of whom we speak have not that choice⁷
Justice, to be done, Demands some Practice on
Whoever comes in any way bent to her hand⁸
I would rather be Accountable for my
Mistakes than Forgiven for Inaction⁹
To those who would Sleep through
The Wounds they Inflict on others,
I offer Pain to help them Awaken¹⁰
¹ Chilon, tr. Hicks in Laërtius Lives of the Eminent Philosophers
² Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
³ Mother Teresa, Her Essential Wisdom
⁴ William Blake, On Another’s Sorrow
⁵ W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folks
⁶ Frederick Douglass, West India Emancipation (1857)
⁷ Denise Levertov, Protestors
⁸ Alan Dugan, Defendant
⁹ #asiansforblacklives, quoted in Adrienne Maree Brown, Emergent Strategy
¹⁰ Krista Franklin, Manifesto, or Ars Poetica #2