Educator and poet Bupinder Singh presents a timely poem on dissent and resistance and how these are misrepresented such that “If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing” (as Malcolm X once famously said).

Dissent

Sickles, spades, stones, sticks!
I cry dissent; they hear hatred.
I bleed nauseously and ooze panic,
they rub me with pellets and bullets,
to close my wound, they welt my skin.

Sickles, spades, stones, sticks!
I paint dissent; they see hatred.
I eat grief and breathe pain,
they feed me laws and rules,
to fill my stomach, they keep me hungry.

Sickles, spades, stones sticks!
I write dissent, they read hatred.
I hear mumbles and whispers of despair,
they sing me fire and pepper gas lullabies,
to tune my ear, they pierce my drums.

Sickles, spades, stones, sticks!