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Originally from the Bronx, New York, Fatimata Cham is a 19-year-old Government and Law major at Lafayette College. Her activism journey began in 2015 at her boarding school in Northern, New Hampshire. She noticed that there was a missing puzzle piece in the conversation revolving around equity and education. She began to lead discussions at her school about diversity and inclusion. She later became a teen advisor to the United Nations Foundation Girl Up and later began to advocate for gender equality around the globe. Fatimata scaled up her work and later became a published poet to the book Perfectly Imperfect. Featured in Pix 11, News 12 the Bronx, The Today Show among many others she continues to fight for a more equitable and just world.
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What do criminals look like?
At a young age, I’ve always wondered because
To me
All I saw where women and men who looked liked me
Melanated
With brown eyes
Golden specks
Just when the sun hit them
You see light
Black hair
Curls
Kinky or loose
Rough hands from all the work they do
What do criminals look like?
Was it the men who stood outside my house
And protected me
Told me to stay in school
What do criminals look like?
Was it the men with low hanging pants
Who would never dare to go shoot up a school
Because they got too much heart
What does a criminal look like?
Is it the man with strong arms
5’8
Who made sure my dreams
Were his
He was mine and I was his
The man who would sing me lullabies at night
Who stayed awake so I could fall asleep
Peacefully
The man who cared so much
That he’d die for me
The man whom I always worried about
Wondering
if he would come back home
Every time he stepped outside his house
There was a clock on his life
Ticking ticking
Society painted him as a criminal
But he was my father
The one who spoke my native tongue
So well
There were never goodbyes with my father
Only see you later sunshine
What do criminals look like?
Are they the people who sit in Congress
In their gray suits
Pens in hand
Writing legislation
To enslave my people
Mass incarceration
What do criminals look like?
2468
We don’t want to integrate
What do criminals look like?
Does a criminal look like
Parkland shooting
Sandy hook five
Columbine
Amber Guyger
What do criminals look like?
Trayvon martin
A bag of skittles
Tamar rice
Toy pistol
Sandra Bland
Traffic stop
What do criminals look like?
Do they have this beautiful scarf wrapped around their head?
Do they have Melanated skin like mine?
Do they prostrate in prayer 5 times?
Or
Do they fast for 30 days
From sunrise to sunset
Do they give Zakat
Do they wait for the Athan
To ring in their ears
What do criminals look like?
They never wait for our hearts to beat twice
They pull the trigger and were gone
Left alone to die
Blood covering our bodies
Leaving our vessels empty
Lifeless corpses
But when we don’t get honored
Until we die
We aren’t celebrated till we die
There’s always a clock on our lives
Ticking ticking
And I’m still asking this question
What do criminals look like?
Do they look like these people who have become hashtags
Or do they look like the people in blue and white uniforms
Saying they are here to protect us
Or do they look like politicians
In grey suits and their deafening silence
What do criminals look like?
I ask myself silently
Looking into the mirror
And wondering if the criminal was me asking
Because sometimes
People tell you so much
You start to believe it too
It doesn’t matter if I prostrate in prayer
Or wrap this beautiful scarf in happiness
Or if I held my father’s hands a little tighter
I always end up losing
Either someone
Or the person staring right back at me
So I ask again
What does a criminal look like?
