OBJECTIFYING
New meaning for an old word
For me the way it was used
What it meant exactly at that moment
How I felt when I learned
What I learned
In such a short span of time
I could have studied that word
And never understood it
It was a statement about
Reducing people to objects
Not statistics like I can accept
Or used to unfeeling me
But individuals the man who
Passes me on the street
That fifteen year old girl
With a baby on her hip
In Tanzania who smiled so sweetly
To a stranger from a different world
An old lady voter in Alabama
Who will never vote again
And will fade into an object
Sepia tones as she is frozen in time
The background fixed forever
It will go into a shoebox somewhere
And that will be forgotten eventually
The terrifying fact is it is happening
Right now while she’s old and vibrant
Someone I would love to talk to
To hear what it was really like
On that bus in that line
At that drinking fountain
We’ve all seen the pictures
The fire hoses and attack dogs
I think someone should have the humanity
To go out and find her and sign her up
To turn her back into a person
It is sad that it took me so long
To hear that word put it in perspective
I had assumed
Wrongly
That humanity was a common trait
A goal that I was on the right side of
I have to admit
That I wasn’t
