I liked how deeply she portrayed the voice of Dick Rowland and how it was to be a black man and not be heard. I also like the connections she made of what the state/ white mobs thought of the situation, and differing theirs from her point of view. I like how she made it more about her point of view(Dick Rowland) but still connected it to how society viewed it and how they were wrong. I also liked how she connected to the person who did believe her. This was very powerful! I also liked the ending when she asked she should be able to speak up about what she believed in because it make me connect back to him not having a voice and how they immediately believed the white woman and did the massacre. And how even though he is black, his voice still matters! And how we as African-American people matter and what we believe in also matters.

Dear Ny’Aira:

I am impressed by your piece, “What if Dick Rowland Could Tell His Side of the Story?” because the Tulsa Race Massacre has stuck with me since the first time I learned about it. Simply put, it was very interesting to see someone put themselves in a mindset of Rowland to write a piece that represents how he felt. I really like the way you portrayed the fact that he was unjustly treated by the Oklahoma police.

A sentence you wrote that really resonated with me was, “i tried using my only weapon i had to use was my mouth.” I think this is a really powerful way to describe the injustice that Rowland as well as countless other POC have experienced throughout the history of the United States. Describing a voice as a weapon really pushes two ideas, a pro, and a con. The pro is that you should never feel hopeless because you are always armed with a voice, it simply depends on how you communicate. The con however is that this weapon requires others to take up their own weapon to be most effective; though this may also be seen as a positive seeing as it sheds light on the idea that strength in numbers makes anything possible.

Thanks for your writing. I look forward to seeing what you write next because from reading this, it is clear to me that you have a creative, but just voice. Seeing that people acknowledge injustice and use that terrible history to create creative pieces like yours to send a message is very encouraging; makes me think that hopefully more people will remember that acknowledging the injustices that occurred in our history will help us fight injustice today.

Sebastian Estrada

Thank you for your post Ny’Aira!

I really enjoyed the perspective change on this issue. I think you prove a really strong point about how African-American are treated and labeled as criminals even if they haven’t committed any kind of crime or violence in general. I believe you really show that in statements like: “The whole state accused me of assaulting a white woman and when I tried using my only weapon i had to use was my mouth i was silenced by the police they didn’t bother to hear me or even question.”

The whole paragraph really speaks up to me because even if I am a white male, I am Queer and I had experiences where I was labeled in ways that didn’t quite fit me, I wasn’t able to advocate for myself . So on a really extremely small level, I relate to his experience which is not shown by history or the media.

I think even if it was a strong paragraph, I believe that to make clear that the issue is still real in today’s society you could do some research in articles like: “The Mass Criminalization of Black Americans: A Historical Overview” by Annual reviews ( https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-criminol-060520-033306 ). I got to congratulate you on your writing and research which was really fun to read and had a little bit of humor which was truly appreciated. I look forward to your next writing and the issues that you will talk about.