Black Boys Don’t Break


Screen Shot 2019-02-14 at 9.01.08 AMSAINT LOUIS STORY STITCHERS ARTISTS COLLECTIVE

BLACK HISTORY MONTH 2019

STAND DOWN / RISE UP

Respect and Redirect

STAND DOWN / RISE UP Respect and Redirect is an exploration of African Americans throughout Missouri’s history that have impacted gun violence.

PERFORMANCE

Monday, February 18, 2019

President’s Day

10:00 Juvenile Detention Center (No pubic audience)

2:00 – 3:00 PM Gateway Arch National Park

Mezzanine (Public)

Free and open to the public.

Note: If government is shut down the event will be held at
Kranzberg Arts Center, 501 N Grand Blvd, 63103, 2:00-3:00 PM

This project is supported by Missouri Foundation for Health, Incarnate Word Foundation, Missouri Humanities Council, and Gateway Arch National Park.

To see Yohanes perform his poem click HERE

 

“Black Boys Don’t Break”

Yohanes Mulat

 

Black Boys Don’t Break

They aren’t allowed to take a break

Black Boys Don’t Break

It’s always go, go, go, no break

 

Black Boys Don’t Break

They won’t come to the wake

You need to wake up

It’s all made up

 

Black Boys Don’t Break

even if their breaking on the inside

they won’t break down,

they must stand their ground,

because

 

Black Boys Don’t Break

At least that’s what we think

I mean that’s what society allows

 

Black Boys Don’t Break

Because they can’t

They can’t take a break or

They’ll end up broken

 

Black Boys Don’t Break

I know how you feel

But you must learn to deal

Stay strong, I promise you’ll learn to heal,

because

 

Black Boys Don’t Break

We must be strong

So long as we breath

Until we leave

 

Breaking Black Boys

Deal in silence

So it becomes less real

They need not know what happens on the inside,

Because

 

Black Boys Don’t Break

We cannot break

We cannot open up

We cannot speak

Or else we will be considered weak

 

Black Boys Don’t Break

Though they beat you with a melee of attacks

Stay strong because

Black Boys Don’t Crack

 

We are like diamonds

We refine under pressure

We are not glass

For we cannot shatter

 

Breaking Blacks Boy

I know it’s hard

But we don’t have the privilege to break

Because no one is going to put us back together

 

Brocken Black Boy

You cry out

Black Boys Don’t Break

But hide your brokenness,

Behind your body

Your soul lies in shambles

But your body remains still

Till it doesn’t

Till your message that

Black Boys Don’t Break, Breaks

And you’re left with your broken pieces

Hidden behind a veil that no one sees past

 

Broken Black Boy

Hides his pain

Though he knows its futility

But he does so with the knowledge that

Black Boys Don’t Break

 

Our history so rich

Of Black bodies immortalized

For never breaking

Even though this world tried to crush them

 

Some go too far lengths (langs) to

Produces poetic hues (Hughes)

We still dread how they treated Scott

Yet he lay foundation for abolitionist

 

We Missouri cannot compromise our integrity

We must be strong

You and I know very well that

Black Boys Don’t Break

 

That is to say what is a boy

What’s in a man

If not strength

If this boy does not break,

Then does he become man

 

What is to break

As if we cannot be human

Why must we be so strong

When can we be human

 

Why does it have to seem like

Black Boys Don’t Break

As if we are an object

As if we are something so far from human

that having emotions makes us weak

 

This poem be the gateway to my humanity

Where I tell the world I am but a man

And this man cannot be broken