Rafael Casal and Daveed Diggs | spoken-word performance CinemaCon 2018
The first thing you do is keep trying to remember the names
It’s Freddie, Alton, Oscar, Walter, Eric and Stephon
Philando, Sam, Tamir, Terrance, Michael, Sandra, Sean
Down Miles knuckles paints his fear of a black son
A Collin with a strike, all he can think to do is run
This is Oakland under the gun
Where we legalize the dope after they locked up all the guys who did the runs
Now there’s new ones with the funds who bought broken homes in hopes that they were patching up the slums
Not noticing they’re standing on the backs of local sons and daughters
Building a high rise in the high tide of a slaughter
Shut down the deli, flip the plot, now it’s a Starbucks on the corner
Yeah but I do like coffee
I like coffee too
But it’s not for me, us
The New York Times called Oakland the new top five places to live here
It’s cuz we made water out the desert now they wanna build on the mud here
Must be something in the water
And everything we own wet
They keep telling me it’s something in the water and I see that they’re gearing up to go get a piece
Lakeshore or The Bottoms, Uptown, Temescal
And the problem is half of these neighbourhoods didn’t exist before we felt a drip and got thirsty
I do like coffee
Yeah I like coffee too
It’s something in the water
Look at the desert we made
Where money sucks everything dry
Where culture is liquid and currently in short supply
Where what we once called a community suddenly gets monetized
And once again soil is tilled on our backs just when we thought we were out
When picking cotton becomes cottonmouth
Look at the desert
We called it a drought
And now they just all want us out
A city trying to erase mistakes it makes me wanna shout
It is Freddie, Alton, Oscar, Walter, Eric and Stephon
Philando, Sam, Tamir and Terrance, Michael, Sandra, Sean
Each day I say the names but it gets harder to hold on
Because the city’s disappearing, can’t forget what’s dead and gone
While we demonize the poor, we relocate and ignore
We revoke and demote till we’re living remote
And when they revolt, cops hit reload until a body hits the floor
No pity for the fallen kid on CNN who saw his end because he had a gun and we don’t wonder why he needed it
Judge the poor resorting to stealing, selling and slanging, not knowing you could’ve lived off those communities’ incomes medium
How perfect does a black boy have to be before we mourn him
How quickly must a neighbourhood vanish for us to notice
We’re standing on roots and coffins and don’t know the names of the dead
Quit aiming at my head, I’m trying to focus
It is Freddie, Alton, Oscar, Walter, Eric and Stephon
Philando, Sam, Tamir and Terrance, Michael, Sandra…
It’s Michael, Sandra… fuck it, who are we forgetting
What was his name
All I remember is how he was slain
Where it was done
There’s a Whole Foods there now but I don’t recognise anyone
There’s a whole new there there now
They told me my here here better run
Town want us on the run
Cops yelling ‘stop’
Both want us disappeared, unsure which the bigger gun
And now when I watch I spot the sly scheme of the high rises on my block
Ain’t no bygones getting by gone
I’m eyes wide to a blindspot
It’s high time that a drive-by by a black suit will get prosecuted like a high crime
Fuck a line-of-duty, call it execution right on prime time
And what is the peace code when your home streets get repo’d for the highest bidders
That’s the fire embers of an auction block causing higher temperates for its dire members
So here’s a story about divided brothers trying to find each other through their violent tempers
Called it Blindspotting
It’s just been us strumming that sad song we laugh along to as survival fluid
Now we wanna pass it along to folks like y’all to help us amplify the movement
This is Blindspotting
Till we moving more in unison, pen a blueprint till its fruition
And Fruitvale type abuses are a rear view like the noose is
This is Blindspotting
Cuz it ain’t like we lack the proper toolkits and the art is how we hold the mirror up
Show this fiction to reveal the truth until it’s clear enough
This is Blindspotting
Help us roll the picture and remember Freddie (Gray), Alton (Sterling), Oscar (Grant), Walter (Scott), Eric (Garner) and Stephon (Clark)
Philando (Castile), Sam (DuBose), Tamir (Rice) and Terrance (Walker), Michael (Brown), Sandra (Bland), Sean (Bell)
Cuz a story never told becomes a story dead and gone
Together we can make a space where all these names live on
This is Blindspotting