Slam Poet Charlotte Abotsi Nails the Devastating Reality of Police Killings in America

Impact

Fill in the blanks.

This is the motif woven throughout Charlotte Abotsi's poem "Mad Libs: Black Death Edition." 

Her message?

Black death is predictable. Police brutality is routine. Hashtag activism ebbs and flows with the waves of viral web. 

Police acquittals? Likely. Racial slurs? Will be loud and clear.

The takeaway? Mad Libs are like news reports. Both are words on a page that build a story. As Abotsi highlights in her poem, the stories are not so different after all. 

Here are highlights from her poem: 

"Mad Libs: Black Death Edition." Fill in the blanks for the police report.

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At approximately TIME, on DATE Officer PROPER NOUN of the PROPER NOUN Police epartment VERB and killed PROPER NOUN, unarmed black NOUN.

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Officer PROPER NOUN stated self defense, said he was frightened. Fear overtook him and he thought he saw a NOUN or a NOUN or a NOUN.

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Fill in the blanks for this news article.

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Breaking: PROPER NOUN, prosecutor, announces the officers involved in the fatal verb of PROPER NOUN have not been indicted.

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The unarmed black NOUN was no angel. PROPER NOUN laid dead as the gravel refused to eat the body.

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This is the NUMBER civilian killing this year. After the hearing, hashtag #JusticeForPROPERNOUN began to trend.

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Fill in the blanks for this Facebook status.

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I cannot believe this EXPLETIVE. Once again a brave officer defended himself against a RACIAL SLUR and these RACIAL SLURS are acting like animals, like thugs.

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PROPER NOUN was a beautiful town until they started to demolish it. 

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Their own communities chanting "COLOR lives matter." No, INCLUSIVE ADJECTIVE lives matter. Why won't they focus on COLOR on COLOR crime?