Revised for Three-Minute Spoken Word Rendering at the 18 April 2017 Meeting of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education >>>>> The Entreaty of Melissa McCoy 2017--- A Demand to Ed Graff and the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education

Revised for Three-Minute Spoken Word Rendering at the 18 April 2017 Meeting of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education

The Entreaty of Melissa McCoy 2017---

A Demand to Ed Graff and the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education

 

By Gary Marvin Davison

Note: 

Melissa McCoy is a composite, fictional character whose lament and entreaty is drawn from the experiences of the many young people with whom I have worked and whom I have loved in the course of a more than 40-year journey.

This version is a compact rendering of the full version, designed to meet the three-minute format for Public Comments for meetings of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education, where this version was delivered last evening, 18 April 2017.

I’m just wantin’ y’all to know

that I’m hurtin’ so bad

hurtin’ so bad

hurtin’ so bad 

‘cause I just realized

how long it’s been

long it’s been

long it’s been.

long it’s been

since you snatched

my

great-great-great-great granny

from the depths of the

Bight of Benin.

 

You locked her in a cage

until the ship came

to take her away

‘cross that long, lonely ocean

lonely ocean

lonely ocean

and then took joy that she survived

the sweat

stench

blood,

So she could produce more of

yo’ cotton

yo’ tobacco

yo’ rice

‘cause ‘course

you had no regard

at all

for

her needs. 

 

And you

kept her there

kept us there

kept me there

until war broke out for

yo’ own purposes

yo’ own purposes

yo’ own purposes

but promisin’

us freedom

that was supposed to be

as simple

as 13, 14, 15.

 

But then you

Compromised

in 1877,

and you gave us unequal equality

in 1896,

‘till we scrambled

Northward on a Migration

lookin’ for freedom

but found none.

 

‘Cause y’all said,

“You can’t live

here

here

here

But you can live
there

there

there

‘cause you got lo’s in common with

the Jews and the other undesirables and all."

 

So, it’s been a long time,

 

Kerryjo, Siad, Nelson, Kim, Rebecca, Bob, Don, Jenny, Ira

 

And Ed Graff, I jus’ don’t don’t know what to think about you.

You say I need social and emotional learning.

Well, I’ll treat other people right,

And I expect them to treat me right,

but when alla that is done,

Melissa wanta know about

 

The Big Bang 

Homo habilis

The Greeks and the Romans

The Han Dynasty

The Abbasids and the Umayyads

Copernicus and Galileo and

Kepler and Newton and Einstein


Sigmund Freud and B. F. Skinner

Troy Maxon

Hamlet

King Lear

Ma Rainey

 

CAGED BIRDS
DREAMS DEFERRED

Do you understand,
Ed Graff?


DREAMS DEFERRED
 

Yeah, you gonna give me my

Education,

so I can face my

great-great-great-great-granny

and tell her what you would

never tell her:

 

“I am sorry.

I am so, so, sorry.”

 

Yeah, you gonna give me my

EDUCATION.

Now

Minneapolis Public Schools

2017

2018

2017

2018 

 

You gonna give

Melissa

 

my

our

 

LONG DEFERRED

EDUCATION