When A Black Man Dies, and: Hyperbolic Overexaggeration Is My Victimization

Abstract: WHEN A BLACK MAN DIES investigates father-daughter relationships within the context of generational violence and trauma caused by interpersonal and societal racism, and offers the traditional black family, and the presence of love that come from it, as a countermeasure to oppression. HYPERBOLIC OVEREXAGGERATION IS MY VICTIMIZATION is a first-person, voice-driven or language-driven poem that confronts how the presence of racism informs and, perhaps, corrupts, how "well-meaning" white people behave deceptively toward black people (and one another) and are culpable in maintaining a system of oppression that sacrifices truth and honesty for false platitudes of love.