by William Skink

Some art program wants to teach the kids about MLK and civil rights and stuff. here’s how art history professor Aja Sherrard describes it:

Sherrard, who earned two master’s degrees in fine arts and art history from the University of Montana, has hosted similar workshops for teens and worked with children throughout her career. Along with making projects accessible for Saturday’s artists, she said she also wanted to ensure not to mask the realities of the fight for civil rights.

“This family class is simple in its delivery, but what I try to do is translate complex ideas, like America’s long history of unfairness toward people of color. George Washington himself was a slave owner,” she said.

As an artist I feel obligated to help the children understand the forces that shape their country of origin, so here is a poem full of helpful links. Enjoy!

ASSASSINATION POEM FOR MLK DAY

they killed your King and Kennedys
Wellstone, Corrie, Michael Hastings

they killed Gary Caradori in a plane with his son
and Gary Webb with two bullets from a gun

(self administered, they say with a smirk
covering skulls hiding brains that do the wetwork)

they killed student movements and made acid clones
they sell crack, smack and pills with high-interest loans

they even killed skeptical inquiry by coining a term
that makes every good researcher accused of being one squirm

they killed and are killing because death fills the hole
where before they went over the line lived a soul