Friday’s New Verse News: YO MUVA
by Judy Juanita
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Don't know Scott Adams or his mother, Dilbert's done Yo muva Don't know Tyre Nichols' mother RowVaughn Wells wearing the shroud in Tennessee (this week) But to the five little pigs in black-skinned masks In Tennessee (this week) Yo muva Where is George Floyd's mother? Where is she? My God. Where is she? Can such a body of water be found on a map? "Your mama’s a whore, sucker,” Eldridge shouted at University of California, Berkeley in his last demented era Yo muva George Floyd begged for his muva Long gone from this bitter earth Tyre called for his muva Three blocks away The muva in me can't stomach one more investigation No more chest thumping the muva in me won't last one more minute Yo muva Yo muva Yo muva Yo muva I told my grandson I HATE WHITE PEOPLE Then I qualified it. NOT ALL WHITE PEOPLE, NOT MY FRIENDS, NOT INDIVIDUALS, JUST THIS ROTTEN HOLLYWOOD-BASTARDIZED APPROPRIATED CULTURE THAT HAS GLORIFIED WHITE PEOPLE AND GIVEN EVERYONE PERMISSION TO EXTERMINATE US. Permission to hold us on the ground and exterminate us like vermin But that dresses up "the talk" What I have to say To the nth degree Where karma waits like a volcano Where the long arc of justice bends And bends until it breaks And gets repaired with Krazy Glue Where some Pope sits on a throne with a potty seat hooked up beneath his flaccid ass In between “the talks” about keeping his hands visible on the steering wheel And being careful about predawn sneaky links in ritzy white neighborhoods Is Yo muva
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Judy Juanita's semi-autobiographical novel about her youthful experience in the Black Panther Party Virgin Soul was published by Viking in 2012. In 2021, her short story collection The High Price of Freeways (Livingston Press, 2022) won the Tartt Fiction Prize. Her poetry collection Manhattan my ass, you're in Oakland won the American Book Award in 2021. She teaches writing at the University of California, Berkeley.