By: Eliza Loukou
“Could we please give the police departments to the grandmothers?” opens Janauda Petrus-Nasah’s lushly imaginative poem of the same name, a joyful rendering of what would happen if benevolent, badass grannies took over as an alternative police force.
The world Petrus conjures starkly contrasts the images of police violence which have flooded cities and screens in the past three months, starting with the harrowing murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, and culminating in brutal police crackdowns on the ensuing nationwide protests advocating for Black lives. Widespread public attention towards a well-documented history of police violence towards Black people in the U.S. has accompanied the outbreaks of rightful public anger, and calls to defund the police and abolish prisons have been inducted into mainstream discourse in an unprecedented way. In the midst of these protests, the number of victims of police violence has continued to grow: Jacob Blake, Deon Kay, Daniel Prude.
Petrus’s 2014 poem emerged into this tumultuous landscape as a healing touch, emblematic of the demands of the current political moment. Its’ words appeared painted across storefronts, such as Minneapolis’ In The Heart of the Beast Theatre, and covered a banner that hung from a balcony overlooking the Minneapolis Police Union.
Petrus is native to Minneapolis, and read her poem at public events staged in remembrance of George Floyd. She wrote “Could We Please Give the Police Departments to the Grandmothers?” after Missouri officials failed to indict Michael Brown’s murderer. In a recorded reading of the poem, she recalled how the police officer characterized Brown as monster-like, and wondered: “who can be around us that’s not afraid of us?” The same question arose six years after Petrus penned her poem, as the murder of George Floyd once again brought to a boiling point feelings of anger, disbelief, and highlighted the need for empathy in systems of public safety.
Who better than Grandma, who “remembers what it’s like to be you” and tread in your very shoes many moons ago, to enact this compassion.
She sees the pain in our bravado, the confusion in our anger, the depth
behind our coldness. Grandma know what oppression has done to our souls
and is gonna change it one love temple at a time.
Most importantly, “Grandma loves you fiercely forever.” Through the figure of the grandmother, Petrus imagines a familial structure of care which is borne out of community accountability. She creates a system of policing that is forged cooperatively, with care and respect; it is formed within a community and so, at its core, serves the community before anything else. Grandma has your back at all times. (is this clear/what you were looking for?)
Petrus’ Grandmothers are badass, dreadlocked, both gentle and fierce. They are evolved and eco-conscious, even inventing their own solar-powered cars. Their entrance in “a fleet of vintage corvettes, jaguars and Cadillacs, with white leather interior” reminded me of the 1974 Afrofuturist film “Space Is the Place,” when the suavely dressed musician Sun Ra and his band descend into Oakland in sleek cars from their new home planet, seeking African-Americans to join them.
As Jack and Connor discussed in a June episode of “Close Talking” dedicated to the poem, Petrus’ joyful poem interrogates the systems of care and public safety: what is the point of them and what should we expect from them? Through the imaginative rendering of her badass police force, she emphasizes what is lacking in the current one: guidance, comfort and nurture. Petrus’ poem departs from what is possible, yet it feels didactic, saying: this is what policing in America should look like. Understanding of the Black experience, familial in structure rather than colonial, with care and rehabilitation as its core values. The images of nurture and growth - lush landscapes of “grasses, roses, dahlias, irises, lilies, collards, kale, eggplants, blackberries” - accompany a careful planting of seeds for future change.
In encouraging the reader to come to terms with the world we live in, to acknowledge deep-rooted defects in the police and carceral system, Petrus asks: how can we infuse love, compassion and empathy in policing and the U.S.’s systems of care to combat entrenched structural racism?
I’ll be honest, though I loved the poem, the image of grandmothers patching up the US police system’s inadequacies with love and healing energy while cruising around in snazzy Cadillacs seemed rather utopic. But while I was writing this post, a notification for a ProPublica newsletter appeared in my inbox. And the email header proclaimed, “Illinois has promised to ‘infuse love’ in its juvenile justice system.”
The newsletter described Illinois officials’ plan to move incarcerated children from prison-like settings to “dorm-like” regional residential centers. While the author expressed doubt about the plan’s sustainability, I felt like I could see Janauda Petrus-Nasah nodding in my mind’s eye.
In reading “Could We Please Give the Police Departments to the Grandmothers?” and dwelling on the idea of poetry as a vehicle for radical imagination, I was also reminded of Zoe Leonard’s “I Want a Dyke for President.” Leonard wrote the poem 1992 in celebration of poet and activist Eileen Myles’ “openly female” presidential bid. Though ultimately unsuccessful, Miles’ campaign - and Leonard’s poem - sought to provide an alternative glimpse into a radical, socially progressive political future. Like Petrus, Leonard highlighted gaps in systemic representation, and imagined antidotes. In her calls for “a dyke for president,” “a fag for vice president,” “someone with no health insurance,” and “a president who lost their last lover to aids” Leonard doesn’t simply ask for radical change, she demands it.
The poem experienced a resurgence before the 2016 elections, with Dazed producing a short film of artist Mykki Blanco narrating it. “I Want a Dyke for President” has played in my mind increasingly as the upcoming presidential elections approach. And Leonard’s demands made almost 30 years ago feel as far off as ever.
Both Petrus’ and Leonard’s poems illustrate the symbolic value of poetry as a way of injecting radical thought into the body politic. While these thoughts allow us to dream and sketch radical pathways to structural reform, the process of translating those ideas into tangible change is less straightforward. Minneapolis once again serves as a case study for this: in June, catalyzed by George Flyod’s death and the ensuing protests, the city council unanimously voted to dissolve and transform the existing police force. By August, however, procedural obstacles had stalled council member’s attempts to overhaul the restrictive charter which regulates how Minneapolis’ police are governed. The proposed amendment would have created a new Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention prioritizing a “holistic, public health-oriented approach” to public safety and reinforced practices of police accountability. With the charter still in place until the council can pass a ballot initiative, it seems the city’s plan for transformative change won’t come to fruition until at least 2021.
That is not to say that Petrus and Leonard’s work are ineffectual or without value. Their social and revolutionary currency are illustrated in how they were collectively harnessed to express frustration against systems of policing and governance. So, while poetry might not be the direct avenue to structural change, these windows into a better world are precious and necessary.