Guest Blogger in Poems for Social Justice

Content: Description of court proceedings and racism.

Sit with me

BY: LYDIA BROWN

If you still believe in a post-racial society or colorblind justice,

come to the Superior Court of the District of Columbia inside the H. Carl Moultrie Courthouse

in the shadow of the U.S. Department of Justice's façade,

a ten minute stroll from the FBI Headquarters,

less than two miles away from the White House and Capitol Hill and the Supreme Court of the United States.

Traipse down the ever-broken escalator

(or wait for the overcrowded elevators in the niche in the back wall)

and sit in the back of courtroom C-10,

so you can watch the ten hour parade of Black men in chains,

interrupted by the occasional brown body wearing handcuffs and shackles to match,

with a handful of Black and brown women shuffling between them,

their names mangled on the apathetic tongues of clerk and judge and prosecutor alike

and misspelled on the docket and in the jail file,

and sometimes misgendered as male or female

with reckless disregard and bureaucratic precision.

(It won't be fixed even if the case goes all the way to trial.)

And if you stay or come back another day,

you can watch the parade again

from the safety of the back row,

beside the tired-faced Marshals,

as many times as you like.

(If you're white, don't worry,

they won't mistake you for a defendant,

but a stern official having a particularly bad day

might ask for your cell phone

outside the courtroom doors.)

And if you're lucky or especially patient,

you might catch a glimpse of someone white coming before the court.

But he — or she — or ze — will never be in chains,

and walks through the rows of spectator seating

well-assured of a swift return home

after an impartial hearing before a sympathetic judge.

It will only be a brief interruption from the regularly scheduled proceedings, though,

so don't leave for a bathroom break

or you might miss the next butchered name

called from the docket sheet.

Sit with me.

Come to the Superior Court of the District of Columbia inside the H. Carl Moultrie Courthouse

in the shadow of the U.S. Department of Justice's façade,

a ten minute stroll from the FBI Headquarters,

less than two miles away from the White House and Capitol Hill and the Supreme Court of the United States,

and sit with me a few hours in courtroom C-10 on the lower level

to witness another day's administration of justice

in the post-racial United States.

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Lydia Brown is an Autistic and multiply-disabled disability rights activist, scholar, and writer. She is a Project Assistant for the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. Lydia currently serves as Undersecretary for Disability Affairs at Georgetown University’s student government executive branch, where she is also working to establish, develop, and sustain a Disability Cultural Center on campus. Most recently, she was honored as a Champion of Change by the White House for the anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Lydia is an alumna of the 2013 American Association of People with Disabilities summer internship program, and was previously the 2012 Patricia Morrissey Disability Policy Fellow at the Institute for Educational Leadership. Lydia blogs at Autistic Hoya (www.autistichoya.com).


Lydia Brown, “Sit with me” from Autistic Hoya. Copyright © 2013 by Lydia Brown. Reprinted with the permission of the author.