23: Why Activist Poet Alice Lovelace Refuses To Use the Language of Her Oppressors

Episode 23: Alice Lovelace - A Peaceful DisrupterMusic AttributionVariations on a theme 1 » The Rush (w/ drum) - Variations 1 (c) by PodcastACThis work is licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.You should have received a copy of the license along with thiswork. If not, see <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/Threshold Questions and Delicious QuotesWhat is "This Poem" really about?This poem is a cultural hybrid Travelin' everywhereBelongin' nowhereIrresponsible, Irreverent And totally irrelevantWhat do you mean by Peaceful Disrupter?I am never happy with the status quo. So, I'm always looking for ways to disrupt the status quo and to move it in a more progressive [way] or [by] empowering those who I see are being left behind.And that has to happen a lot, they have to be those who make other people uncomfortable, so that in their discomfort they actually deeply contemplate change. Because when we are comfortable, we don't contemplate change.... I'm a peaceful disruptor. I don't get loud. I don't, I definitely look for opportunities to shift power and to shift the conversation,What does "asking permission" mean in a classroom?When I walk into a classroom, the first thing I say to my class is I asked permission to be there. And often the teachers don't understand that, but I will say to the students, “this is your community, and I am an interloper, and other adults have made a decision that I should be here, but the rightful decision-makers are you because you were the one who had the power to make this a success or to make it a failure”. So, I always ask their permission.How can you fight the power of the false narrative?I've never forgot the lesson of. Standing up to bullies, not getting into the stories people are telling about you, ...the moment that you try to speak to that story, all it's going to do is keep that story spinning. So, I would never address it.Alice Lovelace: This Poem is for reading only after I'm dead, as the weight of the words could killThis poem is full of blood, fornication, guts, and gunsThis poem hates nationalists, sexists, racists, factionalists and fundamentalists of all ilk's However, this poem encourages creative lies when those lies are in line with this poem’s politics This poem, This poem, This poem is about starvation in Ethiopia, tribal warfare in Rwanda, ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia, oil workers striking in Nigeria, starvation, re-classification, indoctrination, stagnation, and the return of the colonialists to oversee our freedomThis poem, This poem, This poem is about moving forward but you goin' nowhere, you goin' nowhere, you goin' nowhereBill Cleveland:  Well, the first time I laid eyes and ears on Alice Lovelace, she was standing in bright blue lights on a stage in Atlanta, Georgia. She was a diminutive presence...

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