We Want Our Bodies Back- Jessica Care Moore

Political argument/ main message:

The poem, We Want Our Bodies Back by Jessica Moore is an extremely moving and
emotional piece, in which the writer brings to life the collective experience of African
American suffering, particularly that of black women and girls. Moore voices her political
argument powerfully in this poem as she demands equality for black women and girls. She
expresses the collective desire of African Americans and people of colour to be treated as
equal citizens, she admits the black struggle is over and now is their time of rebirth. She
expresses how African Americans are tired of being people whose sense of self is degraded
by society, whose bodies are not valued by society and whose names are not remembered by
society. This text touches on Mbembe’s ideas of biopolitics, Agamben’s ideas of bare life and
Kristeva’s ideas of abjection.

The poem touches on Mbembe’s biopolitics, which of course builds on Foucault’s concept of
biopolitics, the theory that the power over death is the ultimate expression of state control. In
the poem this can be related to the power the U.S police force has over black women and
girls. The poet commemorates Sandra Bland, Judith Jamison, and, Katherine Dunham, all of
whom were victims of police brutality in the U.S.
“to allow their bodies to be dragged by racist police”
“We want our bodies back/ We want them returned to mothers without blood without brains
exposed without humiliation”
“how many of us blossom a beautiful tree of life & pray our pride isn’t cut down the middle/
reduced to trunks”
She talks about how mothers/ parents cannot prepare their “revolutionary daughters/
The poem also touches on Homosacer of Agamben’s ideas of bare life how the state treat
people of colour, more specifically police brutality against women.
Relationship between the powerful and the people.
The writer is very persuasive in her argument, as she shows us how individual black
experience is completely written off by society, how their lives are reduced to bare life, as to
white Americans, particularly those on power black lives have no moral value, the state
simply does not care about them. She highlights how African Americans are in such a state of
bare life, that those of sacred life have stolen African culture and have endorsed it as their
own and have transformed it into a commodity, showing no recognition to African American
people. Moore demands these cultural appropriations back: “we want out magic you try to
bottle, we want our essence you attempt to steal, we want our elegance our sex our walk, we
want our cool, we want our recipes”. She even demands on all their African traits, “I want my
Moroccan nose I want my holy water breasts; I want my Maasai legs I want my alien arms, I
want my ivory coast mouth”. Such African characteristics and features have always been
racial stereotypes used to discriminate people of colour, yet now they have been adopted by
the media and the beauty industry with little or no appreciation of its origination.
which blacks were once racially discriminated against for having, have now been adopted by
the beauty industry and by the media, with little or no appreciation for African individual

Very persuasive argument, now have a greater understanding of black experience in America,
and the hardships they go true every single day, that we fail to realise because of our white
privilege.

Staged as the distinction between the living and the living dead—between the human and the
not-quite/no-longer-fully-human—the zombie demarcates racial and geographic boundaries
and threatens the eradication of these boundaries as well, performing a hauntology of the
geography of capitalist modernity in which black and brown people are located in zones of
violence, social death, and primitive accumulation and whiteness is geographically associated
with zones in which social reproduction normatively takes place (i.e., the global North).” -
Elizabeth Maddock Dillon- “Texas you will always be Mexico in denial”- Texas where
Sandra bland died.
“An abject, by its very nature, is opposed to the ‘I,’ underneath it, at least at the level where
identity engages the psyche. Following this logic, it is precisely through abjection,
humiliation, trauma, or the repetition of ‘sublime affects’ produced by the trauma that a sense
of identity can be gained […] In fact, the process of individuation first requires, in the one
seeking to become a speaking subject, a notion of ‘sublime alienation.’ Black women have no
trouble understanding and experiencing ‘sublime alienation’-perhaps, even, ‘sublime
alienation’ should be another way to define ‘black.’ However, black women, after centuries
of alienation and abjection, are still only convenient dark bodies through which others - read
here as white, male, and powerful - come to know themselves. And not only is it for white
men that black women must bear the burden of all proof, so to speak, but for anyone who
seeks to use the image of black women as the emblem of oppression, as a way of approaching
the abject.” - Corrie Claiborne, “Leaving Abjection - Where 'Black' Meets Theory”- pretty
sure this applies to the text- evidence within the poem, “If black women could be cut down,
No. Removed gently from American terrorism/Who would break our fall? Which direction
would we travel to feel safe?”- being black is bad, being a black woman is even worse, there
is no position lower, no one treated as badly as black women. (I think this is right)
“If we could turn in this skin, these sharpened bones. this brain full of power & history. Who
would we resemble? Invisible doesn’t come in black” shows how worthless they are to
society, after all their suffering and hardship they still resemble nothing, their bodies are
invisible to society. Their invisible identity is gained from the way in which society treats
them. The “sublime alienation”, the mistreatment of them, the dehumanistaion, degration of
them from a white perspective has defined them.
“You have always loved our bodies under your control.”- abject of desire/ this has always
been a problem, see collie caliborne

“the ultimate expression of sovereignty resides, to a large degree, in the power and the
capacity to dictate who may live and who must die.”- Achille Mbembe American police have
this kind of power.
How does the state treat the bodies of those who exist outside the privileged circle of the
citizens?
for Mbembe rather than life it is the power over death that is the ultimate expression of
state control
The modern western state, according to Mbembe, relies for its power not only on the
biopolitical control of its citizens, but the denial of life (through war, terrorization,
dehumanization, colonization, economic exploitation) of those who are not citizens
Those whose lives are deemed non-valuable (and therefore “dead” to the state) include
refugees, migrants, formerly colonized peoples, indigenous peoples, racial minorities,
citizens of developing and third world countries etc etc
“stems from the racial denial of any common bond between the conqueror and the native.
In the eyes of the conqueror, savage life is just another form of animal life, a horrifying
experience, something alien beyond imagination or comprehension…For all the above
reasons, the sovereign right to kill is not subject to any rule in the colonies.”- Mbembe-

“Bare Life”- Giorgio Agamben’s idea which refers to the animal state of simply being
alive- white police/ American society as a whole have reduced blacks/ African
americans to this form of existence.

“Our argument is that reading the demon(ised), monstrous refugee as the

contemporary zombie monster and inversely, reading the resurgence of the zombie
monster through the prism of the so-called refugee and migrant crises, reveals the
precise anxieties brought about by refugees and asylum seekers. We show that the
anxieties connected to and generated by refugee movement reflect the monstrous
qualities of the zombie. In particular, we claim that both figures represent the
transgression of borders, including borders between the human and inhuman and the
dead and undead, as well as the failure of containment, borders and border walls as a
response to crisis. We also argue that the con- temporary zombie, as a race-less
catchall monster figure, mirrors the erasure of race and race relations in the casting of
refugees as dehistoricized, invading and disorderly bodies."- good example of
language to use when applying the theories to the text.
The poem analyses the relations of power between black people, particularly women and the
American state, particularly the US police force. Within this divide we can see black women
function as a symbol of the contemporary zombie monster. This symbol reflects the anxieties
of the American consciousness of people of colour, particularly women. The deep-seated
anxieties connected to people of colour reflect the monstrous qualities of the zombie.
We show that the anxieties connected to and generated by refugee movement reflect the
monstrous qualities of the zombie. In particular, we claim that both figures represent the
transgression of borders, including borders between the human and inhuman and the dead and
undead, as well as the failure of containment, borders and border walls as a response to crisis.
We also argue that the con- temporary zombie, as a race-less catchall monster figure, mirrors
the erasure of race and race relations in the casting of refugees as dehistoricized, invading and
disorderly bodies."

From this poem we can see black women can function as a symbol of the contemporary
zombie monster. This reveals the anxieties of the American consciousness of people of
colour, particularly women. Zombies and black women represent
The relation between the powerful, of which is the U.S police force, and the people, of which
is African Americans or people of colour, specifically women and girls.
Moreover, like the early zombie film narratives of the period, the divide between Whites and
African Americans was racially and otherwise explicit.

In this poem we get to see the relations of power between African American women
and American society/ the American state.

Conclusion
to humanize the pain endured by the bodies of oppressed, dehumanized women everywhere.

“We Want Our Bodies Back” is a call to action, a prayer, for women who’ve lost family members,
our children, and even our own lives to unjustified police violence and profiling.

use her poetry as a weapon,- written deliberately to make us feel something

They shatter your heart and then piece all of you back together. It is an incredible
honor to read these poems and immerse yourself within her life and the battles,
people, pain and love that make her. She divides her verse into four parts, each
section as drilling as the one before.
She offers her lens as a Black woman through her honest reflections and thoughts.
Her presence in each one of her poems is undeniable.
And her voice is electric.
Being white and not having dealt with the complex layers of racism and
xenophobia Moore encounters makes some, if not most, of the work beyond my
comprehension. But the fire that burns from her verse is undeniable. Though I
cannot directly relate to all of her words, I can follow where the pages lead, and I
can feel their weight.

When describing the injustices faced by black women at the hands of the police, Moore says
“to have a pig’s knee pushed into their backs”. The choice of language here, as the poet takes
a play on words of Mbembe’s idea. By using an animal to describe American police officers,
she creates an ironic reversal of roles, she is now subjecting white police, the ultimate figures
of power in American society to this lower status.
Within this divide of power, we can see black women function as a symbol of the
contemporary zombie monster.
We also argue that the con- temporary zombie, as a race-less catchall monster figure,
mirrors the erasure of race and race relations in the casting of refugees as
dehistoricized, invading and disorderly bodies."- good example of language to use
when applying the theories to the text.
The poem analyses the relations of power between black people, particularly women and the
American state, particularly the US police force. Within this divide we can see black women
function as a symbol of the contemporary zombie monster. This symbol reflects the anxieties
of the American consciousness of people of colour, particularly women. The deep-seated
anxieties connected to people of colour reflect the monstrous qualities of the zombie.

Moore’s powerful outcry against the injustices faced by black women at the hands of the state
police, resembles the kind of power Mbembe is referring to

“how many of us blossom a beautiful tree of life & pray our pride isn’t cut down the middle/
reduced to trunks/ attempting to simply grow outside the gritty soil they were planted”

an “animal state of simply being alive”

 “Bare Life”- Giorgio Agamben’s idea which refers to the animal state of simply being
alive- white police/ American society as a whole have reduced blacks/ African
americans to this form of existence.

Lost its cultural grounding to the hands of the powerful

This powerful cry against racism and the injustices faced by Black
women at the hands of the police, is the
It is clear the police hold this kind of power Mbembe is referring to, and the American state
relies on it. Throughout the poem,
- Achille Mbembe American police have this kind of power.
How does the state treat the bodies of those who exist outside the privileged circle of the
citizens?
for Mbembe rather than life it is the power over death that is the ultimate expression of
state control
The modern western state, according to Mbembe, relies for its power not only on the
biopolitical control of its citizens, but the denial of life (through war, terrorization,
dehumanization, colonization, economic exploitation) of those who are not citizens
Those whose lives are deemed non-valuable (and therefore “dead” to the state) include
refugees, migrants, formerly colonized peoples, indigenous peoples, racial minorities,
citizens of developing and third world countries etc etc
“stems from the racial denial of any common bond between the conqueror and the native.
In the eyes of the conqueror, savage life is just another form of animal life, a horrifying
experience, something alien beyond imagination or comprehension…For all the above
reasons, the sovereign right to kill is not subject to any rule in the colonies.”- Mbembe-
“You have always loved our bodies under your control.”- abject of desire/ this has always
been a problem, see collie caliborne