Page 10 - Florida Sentinel 10-9-20

Feature
College Professor With Tampa Ties Has Profound Poem Published In Daily Newspaper In Minnesota
BY MONIQUE STAMPS Sentinel Feature Writer
Professor Angela Shannon has been in the midst of the fight for justice for George Floyd. Prof. Shannon is a writer, poet, and college professor living and working in St. Paul, Min- nesota. She is acutely aware of the systems of racial op- pression in her city and the country.
Prof. Shannon feels that African Americans must envision what a system with- out racial bias looks like. She feels that envisioning the fu- ture is part of our rich history as African Americans. From slavery to today, we have learned what does and does not work. Focusing on what
will work in the future in an ideal world for everyone, Prof. Shannon put her thoughts into words in her poem, “Just America.”
The poem was so pro- found and that it was pub- lished in the daily newspaper in her city, the Minneapolis/St. Paul Star Tribune on September 21, 2020. The poem speaks to the future of a just and fair America. It is a daydream of what is possible.
Prof. Shannon states, “looking for new ways and systems so that we can step into our future is cathartic. At the same time, we can dream of getting rid of things that are against us. This cur- rent period of racial injustice and COVID is a great time to
PROFESSOR ANGELA SHANNON
project forward as a coping mechanism. Dreaming be- yond the current COVID cri- sis while staying safe with wearing masks and social dis- tancing is something positive for us to do. Just as healthy
for our souls, we can dream of a world without social injus- tice while using our phones and cameras to record and re- port wrongdoing. We are reaching beyond the racial trauma to envision a better day.”
Professor Shannon is an Associate Professor of English and Journalism in the College of Arts and Sci- ences at Bethel University in St. Paul. She is also the au- thor of the poetry book "Singing the Bones To- gether." She has been fre- quently published in a variety of journals including "Where One Ends Another Begins: 150 Years of Minnesota Po- etry"; "Beyond the Frontier: African American Poetry for the 21st Century"; and the textbook "A Multicultural Reader, Collection One: Many Voices Literature Se- ries."
Professor Shannon
graduated from Florida State University and earned her Master’s of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) from Warren Wilson College. She is the daughter of promi- nent Tampa couple, Drs. John and Juel Shannon Smith.
Professor Shannon’s
Poem: Just America.
I envision a just America.
I envision cities that don’t lock in Black and brown peo-
ple, and lock out justice. I en- vision neighborhoods with- out blue-badge patrols rounding up free labor. I en- vision protectors making peace deposits. I envision po- lice opposing brutality and foot patrollers serving as moonlit guides.
Once my enslaved ances- tors dreamed of freedom, once my elders dreamed of owning land, once my people dreamed of voting, so, I am working on my visions.
I let these thoughts gather into full-fledge dreams, I let dreams expand into full- fledge visions, and let the vi- sions grow and disperse like the diaspora of my people — like millions of monarch but- terflies like a migration, like a mighty movement.
Let these visions wash over and overtake the videos of Chauvin pressing out George Floyd’s lifeline ...
Overtake Breonna wak- ing to die to police bullets, overtake the long list of po- lice killings: Michael Brown, ashé; Eric Garner, ashé; Jamar Clark, ashé; Philando Castile, ashé. Overtake, over- take, overtake ... ashé, ashé, ashé ...
Wash over these inhu- mane structures, with every step, uproot seeds of hatred, with every march, cleanse the land of barriers, with every tumbling stature, renew the soil for rebuilding.
Create a Just America.
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