COVE

The artwork that I chose to use is a painting titled, This artwork directly correlates to a poem written by Audre Lorde the title of the poem is Power. The poem and the artwork both describe police brutality towards African Americans. When it comes to the artwork though it talks about the police brutality that was going on during the Black Lives Matter movement, and it shows all the police ganging up on peaceful protesters. When looking at the poem and what the poem is explaining how a white officer killed a ten-year-old African American boy, and because of the all-white jury he was let off and it was claimed to be an accident. Lorde’s poem also describes how she feels after seeing the boy and how his body was just lying there with blood coming out of his body and mouth. Lorde says in her poem, “A police officer who shot down a ten-year-old in Queens stood over the boy with his cop shoes in childish blood and a voice said, “Die you little motherfucker” and there are tapes to prove it.”  The description of how the officer reacted after he had killed the ten-year-old boy is truly haunting. Another quote that stands out in Lorde’s poem is, “and lined her own womb with cement to make a graveyard for our children.” This specific line stands out within her poem and really analyzes police brutality and how African American women’s children are murdered and stereotyped and killed by police forces. These police forces are killing these children and are harming the mothers of these children, and these officers are being let off free and are not being held accountable for their actions. When it comes to the thread piece between the poem as well as the poem, they both show the tragic effects of police brutality and how out of control it can get and the dangers of stereotypes and assumptions. The poem that Audre Lorde wrote was very impactful and it shows the raw true emotion that some mothers and an African American woman feels when they see something so traumatizing, as well as see how the officer does not get any repercussions from his actions.