Snuff Films 2

Have you seen the many video clips, “warning this is very graphic and may be disturbing to some,” played and replayed across your television set. Have you watched the deaths of, murders of black people splayed on the news- local, national, international.  Below is my poetic response. When I first heard of snuff films years ago, I thought they were an urban myth. I learned later that it was a true genre that those with too much money and too little basic humanity bought.  Then the meaning of that genre began to change for me and many of my brethren and sistren in recent years.

snuff films

see the

fifteen year old black girl

knife in hand

shot dead

see the knee

on black man’s neck

9 minutes 27 seconds

watch him suffocate

see the black young father

overdue tags

slump in driver seat

watch the black man crumble

watch the black woman collapse

watch the black girl slide down to the ground

watch them die again and again

a media loop of extrajudicial murder

filmed as evidence

used as entertainment

replayed hour after hour

as we see our own families

in each showing

each re-showing

feel them as whip slashes across our backs

as nooses around our necks

as ancient moans coming from the hulls

of ships voyages we survived

see the father’s hope

choked into darkness

see the uncle’s spine

severed into lonely death

see the young woman

children never conceived

shot

again

again

again

devorah major © May 2021