Chain-Gang All-Stars

by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Before he’d ever been brave enough to lead the call-and-response, Nile had watched others closely. It was an art form. Quickly, precisely, and honestly choosing words to carry the moment. If you did it wrong, it felt awkward, like running on a bad ankle. If you did it right, it was as if you’d sewn all the souls who had gathered together into a single powerful force, unified and invincible. And if you could gather enough people into one voice, then, Nile believed, you could do anything.

Still, some bystanders did raise their fists in solidarity. Some clapped as they passed. Some laughed. But most of them acted as if the protestors weren’t there at all. And of course, some weren’t acting. Some truly didn’t think about the fact that men and women were being murdered every day by the same government their children pledged allegiance to at school.

It was hard to forget the things that hurt you. You didn’t often forget the shape of your cage.

“I’ll continue.” Government Man so sewn into his language, but all it means is murder. It tries to paint all that nothing over death. He is nothing too. That’s the only way he could. A shell, a cipher for a thing so great he’d be destroyed looking in the mirror if he weren’t already dead on the inside. Like me.

many politicians had already appeared before holostreams to implore nonviolence. An absurd thing for the murderous state to plead for, but, as always, the massive violence of the state was “justice,” was “law and order,” and resistance to perpetual violence was an act of terror. It would have been funny if there weren’t so much blood everywhere.

I thought of how the world can be anything and how sad it is that it’s this.

How many times since had she been in that same space? Been asked to accept some other’s violence. So many like her had lived that same nightmare.[*] This was another part of her purpose. To live loud and be epic despite what had happened to her. Despite the world that had asked her to be hurt and be silent about it.

Randy pulled in closer as if her skin held a richer oxygen, as if in her he found fresh air.

She thought, Home is another person, a half you find.

About 14,700 complaints alleging sexual and physical abuse were lodged against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) between 2010 and 2016. Thousands and thousands. ICE was created in 2003 as part of the government’s response to the September 11 attacks.

The truest human virus multiplied through the masses. The violence took control.

“What I’m telling you is you can curse yourself to the moon and back and what will it have you feeling like? But try to look at yourself and say ‘I love you’ and see what happens.” “It would be a lie.” “Ya done worse than that before.”