Bullet Points

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2019

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Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

An Argument Against Police Brutality

Bullet points are often used in persuasive argumentation to show the key points of a problem that needs to be solved or a solution that needs to be implemented. Here, the bulleted list both introduces Brown’s plea about police brutality and is a dark pun on the idea of gunshot wounds. Brown utilizes four main “points” in the body of his argument to highlight the problem and its fallout. First, Brown includes examples of the fate of several minorities in recent police custody (Lines 1-10), showing the severity of the problem. Next, he shows how these incidents create a loss of trust in the police due to personal risk (Lines 10-19). He builds a personal component into his argument by showing his own longing for a so-called average American death (Lines 21-25). He makes a prediction regarding his possible death near a police officer (Lines 25-27) and adds an ethical appeal to the preciousness of human life (Lines 27-31). Brown’s argument concludes with a condemnation of privileging bullets over people (Lines 32-33).

Rhetoric meant to convince draws on facts, examples, and testimony to persuade the audience. Brown does this as well. His first lines reference the deaths of Huerta, White, and Bland as evidence. With these incidents in mind, his fears of being killed by police can be seen as more realistic. Contrasting the hypocrisy of officers sworn to uphold the law violating it, with the instinctual behavior of maggots—not to mention with the actively humane actions of religious figures and the love of mothers (Lines 16-19)—makes the negative behavior of the police seem more abhorrent, clarifying Brown’s opinion regarding the breaking of trust.

The next section solidifies Brown’s desire that he—and anyone else—be given the chance to die “as most Americans do” (Line 21)—still victimized, but less violently, at the hands of corporations like big tobacco, from the traditional overconsumption of food, or because of the inherent dangers of being unhoused. Fearing being the target of the police makes Brown feel not equal to “most Americans” (Line 21) because of racial injustice.

Finally, Brown makes the point that every life is precious, and that senseless killing diminishes a community. The pronoun-heavy grief of “He took / Me from us and left my body” (Lines 27-28) suggests that police brutality is a profound theft and a betrayal. Brown concludes by insisting that our encouragement of toxic masculinity and glorification of weaponry undermines our humanity: We privilege bullets over the intact brains of the people they are used to kill.

Loss of Control and Autonomy

Self-determination is highly valued by most Americans. “Bullet Points” makes it clear that for many Black citizens, this right has felt ironically under threat by the very individuals who have vowed to uphold it: the police. In several cases, as Brown points out, they have made their victims voiceless. Brown insists on using his voice to shine a spotlight on the psychological aftermath of police brutality.

The assertion of his autonomy is clear in Brown’s use of strong statements about choice. Brown’s repeated use of “I will not” (Lines 1, 2, 3, 5) shows us that no narrative of accidental or self-inflicted death should be believed by his loved ones. His forceful rejection of death by suicide insures that his sovereignty is not erased like that of other victims from marginalized backgrounds. He refuses to be lied about, like Victor White III, who the police claimed shot himself “in a police car while handcuffed” (Line 6). Should he ever die, Brown insists, “anywhere near a cop / then that cop killed me” (Lines 26-27).

Brown also uses the phrase “I promise you” (Lines 5, 11, 21, 25) four times to assert his power of self-direction, positioning himself as a man of honor. In the first instance, he assures his audience that “I will not [die by suicide]” (Line 5) in a patrol vehicle or in a jail. The second is when he asserts his lack of faith in the police themselves. The third promise centers on his insistence he will be like “most Americans” (Line 20) who die from cancer, overconsumption, or being unhoused. The final promise is a restatement of the first: He will not allow himself to be dismissed as a suicide victim in the vicinity of any “officer of the law” (Line 15). The list of promises is a way to assert control and subvert any narrative made after the fact by making the threat known beforehand.

The assertion of autonomy over any false narrative highlights the precious quality of the self, which cannot be measured by “the settlement / A city can pay a mother to stop crying” (Line 30-31). In other words, it cannot be bought. A poem born out of fear of elimination of the self turns into a fierce argument for the preservation of that self.

Patterns, Rituals, and Humane Behavior

The beginning of “Bullet Points” relies on the enumeration of types of death that have occurred during incidents of police brutality. While Brown personalizes this into what he “will not” (Lines 1, 2, 3, 5) do, the incidents themselves are based on real life news reports on killings of people from minority populations by police officers and bear striking similarities to one another. This creates a sense that there has been a pattern of behavior that is fast becoming a way people of color die.

Brown then contrasts this series of events with other repetitive patterns or rituals. The first is maggots eating dead flesh, which describes the natural decomposition of tissue when a body is left unburied. This leads the reader to consider the human rituals surrounding death. The sanctity of life causes us to revere the dead body since it once housed a soul. It is considered by almost all cultures and religions to be sacrilege to deface the body after death. At the moment of death, or shortly after, clergy often gently close the deceased eyes; families and medical personnel cover the dead with a white sheet as a sign of respect. Brown notes that the police who brutally take life, particularly innocent life, are desecrating the body and in doing so, becoming less than human—and even less than nature’s scavengers. This is why he trusts “the maggots” (Line 11) more than “[a]n officer of the law of the land / To shut my eyes like a man / Of God might” (Lines 15-17).

Brown suggests that when we make a “bullet / fished from the folds of [a] brain” (Lines 32-33) more “beautiful” (Line 32) than the life housed in the body, we have lost our moral center. If we cannot hold the police to the oath they take to protect every citizen, we have instead created a ritual of terror and cruelty that replaces humanity and respect.