Pandemic Protests Collection By Larry Handy

Editor’s Note | The African American Folklorist

We are honored to present a powerful new collection of poems by Larry Handy—work that blends lyrical precision with lived memory, cultural critique, and a deep understanding of Black folklife. More than verse, these are field notes in poetic form: rooted in personal testimony, shaped by collective struggle, and annotated with the clarity of a community archivist.

This collection, Six Poems by Larry Handy, includes:

• Pulled Over (A View from the Curb)

• We’re In This Together (Covid19 Racial Rant)

• The Act of Naming

• I Still Remember Latasha

• Profiled…And We Still Cool

• Ghazal for the Word Complete

Each poem is accompanied by a reflective annotation—layering the poet’s intent, backstory, and cultural context to illuminate the realities behind the imagery. These writings trace the intersections of protest and pandemic, memory and mourning, resistance and survival. They move fluently between spoken-word urgency and archival sensitivity, crafting a living document of Black American experience through the lens of Los Angeles and beyond.

At The African American Folklorist, we are committed to platforming work that emerges from and speaks to Black communities, identities, and traditions. Handy’s poetic voice echoes the mission of this publication: to preserve, contextualize, and amplify Black lifeways on our own terms.

We will be releasing this collection one poem at a time to give each piece the space it deserves—and to invite readers to sit with the weight, rhythm, and resonance of each individual offering.

— Lamont Jack Pearley Editor in Chief 
The African American Folklorist

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Pandemic protests collection
written by: Larry Handy

Pulled Over (A View from the Curb)

They told me I look like someone they were looking for.
Sitting on the curb I was told I look like something they were looking for.

And who or what is it? Freedom? Their own soul? Their fear? Their aspiration? Their mirror?
Are you looking for Christ, officer? The moon is brilliant, have you looked at it? Why are you
looking at me?

Told to sit next to a cigarette butt. A cockroach shell separated from its antennae. White tweens in
SUVs making funny faces at me. This is the view from the curb.

To be treated like me, White friends get Mohawks, tattoos, and piercings. 
To be treated like me, I just exist.

I will wear Hawaiian shirts in the cold…next time…
the anti-hoodie…next time…
maybe this will change things…next time…

Annotation

The first protest I attended in 2020 here in Los Angeles took place on May 30th at Mariachi Plaza slightly east of downtown in the Boyle Heights district.  LA which has a predominately Latino population showed up for George Floyd as did the rest of America, but the city also brought to attention the Latino men and women who had been abused by law enforcement.  Latinos that did not make the national news like Anthony Vargas, Jose Mendez, Christian Escobedo and eventually 19 days later on June 18th Andres Guardado, an 18-year-old security guard who was shot 5 times in the back while at work by LA County sheriffs.  Mexicans, El Salvadorians, came out with Black Lives Matter masks and danced indigenous dances.  Though they were not Black like me they held signs that said: “Black is Beautiful.”  

What drove me to protest was my own experience with the LA County Sheriff's Department, dating back to the early 2000s.  Despite having college degrees, voting, paying taxes, abiding by the law, and complying with the law, routine stop and frisks would still happen to me.  While they never used racial slurs to my face, sheriffs would tell me to my face, “You look like a Black guy who did (fill in the blank)”, or “Black dudes like you like to (fill in the blank)”.   I was even groped between my legs by female officers who were “looking for illegal items”.  The humiliating thing about it all was no one apologized to me for mistaking my identity.  No one apologized to me for making me late for work.  No one thanked me for complying.  After filing formal complaints against the LA County Sheriff Department failed, I gave up the fight but I didn’t give up the right to write.  

Black folks have said in the past do not waste your time explaining racism to White folks.  But I do.  I do because I am a librarian and librarians answer questions.  We were the first “Google”.  And I tell White folks, if you have piercings, mohawks, tattoos, the world looks at you a certain way.  Cops stare at you, courts frown at you, and employers doubt you.  Well, my skin to the dominant culture is treated as though it were a mohawk, tattoo, and piercing.  Some of them finally get it, while others just walk away, pretending not to understand.

The protests in Los Angeles came as karma to me.  When Black, Brown, Beige, and White came together with signs, chants, and demonstrations, it was as though my formal complaints that were ignored finally got brought to light.  Every step I took marching was a stomp upon the very streets that tried to kill my spirit.  It may not come when you want it to come, but it will come.

We’re In This Together (Covid19 Racial Rant)

Locked in scared to go out told what to do by the government confused can’t find what you want loss of privilege sick family sick friends imprisoned no job worried how to pay rent Now  you know what it’s like being Black.  Waiting for covid19 reparations from the government see what I mean?  You’re a nigger now.  

Slaves in the same ship

Sickened by something strange

Sickened by something systemic

Sickened by something foreign to you

Sickened by something you didn’t create

Startled by stuff you didn’t start

Yep.  You’re a nigger now.

Feeling worthless helpless feeling agitated not knowing when it will all end; now you know how it feels to be Black.  Living 3rd world in the richest country in the world.  Screaming power now!  Yes, we want power!  Now!  Praying the power stays on—the utilities are due. 

My people and I know this to be true.

To you and yours how much is new?

Annotation

I never loved using the N word.  I never liked hearing rappers or comedians or brothers in barbershops using it.  But for this one I had to.  I tell people that the marginalized have a certain wisdom that the privileged don’t have.  And while the privileged do have confidence and a spirit of adventure that the marginalized often lack, when things don’t go the way the privileged expect, they shatter.  They become babies again.  During the pandemic I watched the privileged get subjected to things they were not used to.  They complained that they were oppressed because they had to wear a mask or were denied entry to a building because they didn’t wear a mask.  And they complained that it was un-American and that the founding fathers were rolling in their graves.  Well, prior to 2020 they also complained that people like myself complained too much about racism and injustice.  Funny how Karma comes.  It may not come when you want it, but it comes.

The Act of Naming

For many on earth
The only thing they name is their child
Their pet
Their pain
For me I’ve named thousands of things—
Poems, mostly
Choice by choice
Voice by voice
It never dawned on me I am an Adam in my own way
See?  There I go again naming things. 

Trump has named you the China Virus
The Wuhan
Kung Flu
I call you fate
Plague
Peter for Peter PanDemic
Never Never in my land
Could I ever ever imagine 
You could fly 
you could fly 
you can fly 
from sea to shining sea

Peter
Welcoming the dead to Heaven’s gates
Blowing your Covid horn
As the dead walk 
Though gates
TRUMPeting the dead 
Though Heaven’s
gates   

Annotation

Trump is proof that White Privilege exists.  There is no way a Black president would be able to make up words like “Kung Flu” and not be called “ghetto” or “gangster” or “jungle”.  Trump did it and got praised by his base.  I grew up in an era where rap and hip hop were fledgling.  Rap was treated as the bastard son of disco, just an experimental passing fad.  I remember when rappers said things on wax and the religious right wanted them banned for indecency, inappropriateness and inconsiderateness.  That same religious right has elected a gangster rapper in orange face.  Trump has many similarities to television evangelists.  They preach off script as the spirit leads.  They promise miracles.  They cast out demons.  They (some of them) survive scandal.  They are anointed by the “whole armor”.  Trump preaches off script as the spirit leads, Trump promises American miracles, Trump casts out Mexicans and Muslims, Trump survives scandals, and his miracle ear that was shot but not shot off was anointed by some type of armor.  Christians relate to Trump because they relate to television evangelists. 

What I wanted to do in this poem was play with words the way rappers do, the way Trump does and throw in Christian imagery the way television evangelists do.  As Don King would say, “Only in America!” 

I Still Remember Latasha

I Still Remember Latasha

50 stars in rows or 13 in a circle
We’ve wished upon them all.

Dragged into war like Sandra Bland’s cigarette
We’ve touched cotton and steel
Woven freedom in quilts
Dug our own ditches
To the tune of God Bless America
So, let’s stand for Betsy Ross’s graven image
Or kneel
Whatever your choosing
Black Lives Matter or Boston Massacre
Kapernic or Cris’ Attucks
Revolutions come in cycles
Kill time with history
The mystery isn’t lessened once you know
1619 was a long time ago
But I still remember Latasha from ’91.

Shot in the back before Trayvon in 2012
Michael and Tamir in 2014
Freddie in 2015
And George last week
Remember those names but remember hers.

Before body cams
Cell phones
Social media and distance

Before Trump
While a Democrat was in office.
See?  The party doesn’t matter.

We matter.

And we’ve died under them all
13 in a circle or 50 in rows.

Annotation

This is a very important piece to me.  Rodney King was beaten by 5 LAPD officers on March 3, 1991.  It was filmed on tape and seen across the world.  But it was Latasha Harlins, a 15-year-old girl, 13 days after Rodney King on March 16, that triggered outrage among Black folks in Los Angeles.  Latasha was shot in the back and killed by a store owner over a bottle of orange juice.  Had she been alive in 2020 to watch George Floyd die on screen she would have been 44 years young.  

Black Lives Matter is a complicated term.  It is a folk term because it is not copyrighted, and is for all to use.  It is an organization, but it is also a rallying cry.  A slogan.  A belief.  Many people who oppose the organization confuse it with the folk term.  And though there have been scandals involving the organization, the folk use must still be upheld.

Black Lives Matter the organization, when it holds meetings, rallys and protests, it conductions a formal water ritual common among African peoples.  The libation.  In 2020 BLM leaders would poor a drop of water on the street and the crowd would say the name of a deceased person killed unjustly or a deceased elder.  “Say his name.  George Floyd [water poured].  Say her name.  Breonna Taylor [water poured].  Say his name Ahmaud Arbery [water poured].  Say her name.  Sandra bland [water poured].”  People began running out of names and even the musician Prince was shouted out.  “Say his name.  Prince! [water poured].”  Chadwick Boseman, the esteemed actor who played Thurgood Marshall, Jackie Robinson, James Brown, and superhero Black Panther died on August 28, 2020 of colon cancer and in Los Angeles—the city of stars—his name entered the BLM libations.  But it saddened me that Latasha Harlins was rarely mentioned.  And I believe partially it had to do with her death being so long ago that it had not impacted the younger generations of activists and protestors.

As an archivist/librarian by day I have a special place in my heart for memory.  Nowadays if something isn’t posted on social media it hasn’t been posted in the mind.  I wrote this poem as a poetic libation to Latasha Harlins who I remember.  

Profiled…And We Still Cool

THE GOOD KIDS
SEVEN IN BLACK HOODIES.

We still cool
Them streets is our school
Learning cops cruise late
Our edges stay straight
Too sober to sin
Soda is our “gin”
Store robbed in June
They’ll blame us soon

Annotation

I had to commit blasphemy with this one.  The great Gwendolyn Brooks wrote “We Real Cool” and I had to write my own version of it.  The poem speaks for itself.  The unique thing that I found during the 2020 Los Angeles protests was the presence of punk rock culture largely brought on by the White allies who joined us.  It was in their defiance, their dress, their leaflets and flyers and their “ACAB” slogans.  They took inspiration from the Anti-Racist Action punk movement of 1988 started by the Minneapolis “Baldies”—a group of White and ethnic kids of color banning together to kick out the neo nazi-skinheads who were assaulting immigrants and people of color.  Punk rock is very folk.  I had a music professor explain it to me.  When it is your birthday no one cares how good or bad the song “Happy Birthday” is sung at your party.  It is sung by everyone and what matters is that it is sung.  Punk rock songs are like “Happy Birthday”.  It is about the gathering.  In my personal life I have embraced the punk rock philosophy of the straight edge made popular by the band Minor Threat.  Straight Edge teaches strength through sobriety and sobriety fuels one’s resistance to control and injustice through clarity of thought.  In this piece I incorporated the straight edge image.  

Ghazal for the Word Complete

Teddy bear and shovel and afternoon sun
A child slides alone in her own park complete

Last week I let go of a man who died
Stages of breath show a life complete

Covid came and we masked our world tight
We prayed our trials would be complete

Songbirds pitch their 10-minute tweet
Peppered at high pitch the wind is a radio
Complete

Time can be squandered on pleasures and treats
And soon without warning the year is complete.

Annotation

My final protest of 2020 came the day after the elections.  Wednesday, November 4, 2020.  Nationally Trump had lost to Joe Biden which the world watched, but locally Los Angeles protestors were focused on the district attorney.  The incumbent DA Jackie Lacey ran against the challenger George Gascon.  Black Lives Matter Los Angeles led by Dr. Melina Abdullah challenged District Attorney Lacy on many issues.  BLM Los Angeles held Wednesday protests outside the Hall of Justice every Wednesday for 3 years beginning in 2017.  This protest was a gathering in celebration, District Attorney Lacy had lost.  Despite Jackie Lacey being the first woman and the first African American to serve as District Attorney in Los Angeles, both BLM and the ACLU held her responsible for not prosecuting police offers for their actions and for accepting donations from law enforcement unions which they felt was a conflict of interest.  

Everything was polarizing.  If it wasn’t about race it was about power and if it wasn’t about power it was about the virus that stopped the world.  We had no Summer Olympics because of the virus.  Movie theaters shutdown and so I went to drive in theaters.  Sports channels were showing reruns of old games and when they finally had current games teams played under quarantine to a fake crowd.  The Los Angeles Lakers won the NBA championship.  Los Angeles Laker Kobe Bryant died in January kicking off the year which possibly inspired the Lakers to go on and win the NBA championship 9 months later as well as the LA Dodgers that same month.  The same people who criticized Kaepernick for kneeling, began taking knees themselves—coaches alongside players.

I was a caregiver working an essential healthcare job on the side.  Since many senior citizen centers were closed, I worked with older adults in their homes, and I happened to be with one while he passed.  

Many people in my profession, the profession of modern American poetry, turn away from the pastoral.  “Poems about nature don’t move me / I want something that says something / A tree doesn’t speak to me.”  This poem was my middle finger to that way of thinking with the image of the songbird.  We need to listen to nature more because it will summon us back whether we go peacefully or go kicking and screaming.