Ty Gray-El

Televised Devolution Ty Gray-El

Having been born and raised during the Civil Rights era, in the very first all black public housing project in America, I was labeled ineducable by the District of Columbia's public school system. I find a bit of ironic audacity in the fact that I rebuked their prophecy and lived long enough to write this brief testimony in verse. The nation's politicians certainly had other plans.

Televised Devolution is a short poetic series of observations from one who wasn't supposed to survive racism, white supremacy, the war on poverty, the war on terror and especially not the war on drugs. Considering that most of my battles were fought within a two-square-block radius called Langston Terrace in Washington DC, not quite 40 blocks from the presidential palace called the White House, and that my 500 square foot bunker/cubbyhole was located literally and directly above the Langston Library, I find it ironically audacious indeed. You see, I wasn't even supposed to be able to read, much less write.

I pray these few simple syllables serve as ammunition for someone still fighting America's wars.