At the 2015 College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational, Darius Simpson, a black man, and Scout Bostley, a white woman, delivered powerful poetry together as they both spoke to the struggles of race and gender issues.
The twist? They delivered the lines for each other.
In a powerful performance meant to illustrate the different between being an ally and usurping someone’s voice, the poem, “Lost Voices,” shows what happens when someone else speaks your words.
“My body has become cause to write legislation, cause for a** smacks in the back of a class, my body has demanded everything except respect,” said Simpson on Bostley’s behalf.
Bostley said for Simpson, “The first day I realized I was Black, it was 2000, we had just learned about Blacks for the first time in 2nd grade, at recess, all the White kids chased me into the woods chanting ‘slave.'”
And then, together, they spoke to their allies. “Never will I turn away an ally… but when a man speaks on my behalf, that only proves my point. Movements are driven by passion, not by asserting yourself dominant by a world that already puts you there,” they said in unison.
Switching places once more, they delivered their final lines in their own voices, to thunderous applause.