Prone To / Response

To celebrate the release of NPEP student Erika Ray’s new collection of poetry 42 and Freedom, the Northwestern Insider has published four of her poems. NPEP graduate Dré Patterson responded to the poem, “Prone To.”

Prone To

By Erika Ray

Stokely Carmichael

believed that a Black woman does her best

work in the prone position

Someone should tell him that she is now prone to

– intimate partner violence

– incarceration

– isolation

– sullenness

– silence

all things you have to lay down for.

---

Response

By Dré Patterson

This piece hits hard. I first came across this quote by Stokely Carmichael a year or so ago. He was pushing back against the Black feminist voice calling for Black women to have more equitable positions within the various civil rights movements: “the only position for women in SNCC [Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee] is prone.”

I had to look up prone: “laying flat or prostrate.”

What? Fighting against the oppressor and oppressing your closest “rappie” (co-defendant)!