Systemic Racism and Violence in I'll Fly Away
Thematic Claim
Rudy Francisco’s I’ll Fly Away argues that systemic racism operates through an interlocking network of violence: police brutality, media distortion, gun proliferation, and a set of contradictory instructions designed to criminalize Black existence. The collection shows that Black people are forced to navigate a world where their bodies are targets, their lives are disposable in popular culture, and their most intimate choices—like fatherhood or how to behave in public—are policed by a society that treats their survival as suspicious. Yet the poems also insist on resistance, love, and imagination as tools to reclaim agency.
Tracing the Theme Across the Plot
1. Police Violence and Media Complicity
In “When they say he is black”, Francisco strips down the standard news cycle that follows a Black person’s killing by police. The poem lists the predictable steps: the announcement of the victim’s race, the fact that he was unarmed, the release of his face and the officer’s name, and the system that “licks his fingers clean.” The final lines reframe the cliché “Life is short” as a specific threat: “you realize the phrase / ‘Life is short’ / sounds a little different / when you are being hunted.” That shift from abstract platitude to lived reality captures how systemic violence remakes everyday language into a weapon.
A companion poem, “I watched the viral video of the police officer playing basketball”, delivers a brutal punchline about media spectacle. The speaker notes the irony of a “shooting / that doesn’t need / a burial.” Here, the officer’s basketball game becomes a stand-in for how law enforcement’s casual violence is normalized and even joked about, while Black deaths are buried—or, as the poem says, they become viral content without the dignity of a funeral.
2. Impossible Instructions
“Instructions for black people” is the collection’s most direct exploration of the double bind. The poem issues contradictory commands: “Speak. I dare you. Say something. / Say nothing. Be silent.” It tells Black people to be a “stone” or a “Polaroid”—anything that makes no sound—and then warns that their tongue is a “firearm on a plane.” The list mushrooms into absurd prohibitions: don’t wear hoodies, don’t smile, don’t run, don’t drive. The speaker finally reveals the system as a “record player” that can “put on history / and spin it backwards.” This image captures how racist structures recycle the same impossible demands, trapping Black people in a no-win scenario where any action can be read as a threat.
3. Gun Violence as Environmental Crisis
In “Climate Change”, Francisco draws an analogy between banning dangerous consumer products (like lawn darts) and the failure to regulate firearms. He notes that guns kill 30,000 people every year, while preschools now run active-shooter drills and metal detectors become common in high schools. The poem personalizes the fear: the speaker cannot enjoy a concert without scanning exits for potential shooters. He lists individual responses—a woman who homeschools her daughter, a man who stops going to clubs—and asks, “when can we say / this is also the environment?” By framing gun violence as a form of climate change, the poem argues that systematic neglect creates a toxic atmosphere that everyone breathes, but that Black communities experience most acutely.
4. Cycles of Violence and Sacrifice
“And maybe we all know a ‘Ricky’” introduces a young Black man compared to a dandelion seed, hoping a “gust” will carry him to a better place. The poem imagines the community bargaining with violence: “We grab violence by the collar, / and say, / ‘Anybody but him.’” They offer other young men—O-Dog, Cane, Caesar, Ruby—as substitutes, but negotiations fail because “there seems to be a language barrier.” This grim negotiation reveals how systemic racism treats Black lives as interchangeable commodities, and how violence is a language the system refuses to understand.
Character Connections
The speaker serves as the collection’s central consciousness, navigating anger, grief, and love. In “I say black fatherhood”, he resists a racist stereotype not with violence but by whispering his daughter Zoey’s name—a choice that redefines strength. Zoey herself appears in a later poem where the speaker measures the world by her height and weight, showing how care for a specific person can counteract abstract systems of harm.
Mama Saba asks for a word that doesn’t exist in English, highlighting how language itself can fail to capture Black experience—a problem magnified when the system uses language to issue contradictory commands.
Ricky represents the young Black men the community tries to save but cannot, trapped in cycles of violence that the system creates. The poem’s dandelion symbol (also featured in the dandelion symbol analysis) suggests fleeting hope.
Symbol Connections
- Pen as shovel (symbol page): In “This is how I scare the dirt,” the speaker declares that “sometimes a pen is also a shovel,” using writing to unbury the dead and resist erasure. This tool counters the system’s attempts to bury Black stories.
- Checkered flag (symbol page): Alluded to in the title I’ll Fly Away, the flag represents the finish line of escape. For Black people under systemic violence, survival itself becomes a race.
- Peace lily (symbol page): A flower typically associated with peace and funerals. In the context of police violence and media spectacle, the peace lily reminds readers that supposed “peace” often comes after death, not before.
Complexity and Contradiction
Francisco does not offer a simple solution to systemic racism. In “Alternate endings for the black movies that I can’t stop watching,” he rewrites violent film narratives so that Black characters survive: Cane moves to Atlanta, Ricky gets drafted, Denzel retires. Yet the poem ends with a sharp question: “If the movie says, / ‘Our life is more / important than our death’ / Will we pay money / just to see black people / living?” This challenges both Hollywood’s appetite for Black suffering and the reader’s own consumption of such stories.
Meanwhile, the speaker’s own anger is a recurring tension. In “I say black fatherhood,” he feels his fists clench but chooses his daughter’s name as a cooling force. The poem “and the morning shows up” insists on gratitude and joy even amid chaos, treating each day as a “free refill.” These moments of tenderness do not erase the violence; they show how survival requires both resistance and care.
Study Questions and Answers
1. How does “Instructions for black people” illustrate the concept of a double bind? The poem lists contradictory commands—speak and be silent, look and don’t stare, don’t run and don’t walk—showing that no matter what Black people do, the system can interpret it as justification for harm. The speaker calls this a record player spinning history backwards, meaning the same racist logic repeats endlessly.
2. In “Climate Change,” what is the effect of comparing gun violence to an environmental crisis? By linking mass shootings to climate change, Francisco argues that gun violence is a systemic, man-made disaster that alters everyday life—like childhood drills and metal detectors. The comparison also points to society’s selective outrage: we ban lawn darts but not guns, exposing a moral blind spot.
3. How does the poem “Alternate endings for the black movies that I can’t stop watching” critique popular culture? The poem rewrites violent films so that Black characters survive, but then asks whether audiences would pay to see Black people living. This challenges how media profits from Black death and suggests that systemic racism extends to what stories are deemed commercially valuable.
4. What role does the character Zoey play in the speaker’s response to racial violence? Zoey appears in two poems: in “I say black fatherhood,” her name cools the speaker’s rage, and in “Zoey,” she becomes the whole world—measured by her size. Zoey represents an intimate, love-based alternative to the abstract systems of control. She anchors the speaker’s humanity and his refusal to let violence define him.
5. How does the symbol of the dandelion relate to the theme of systemic violence in “And maybe we all know a ‘Ricky’”? The dandelion seed is fragile, carried by chance wind, much like Ricky’s hope for a better life. The community holds him up, but the system’s “language barrier” prevents negotiation. The dandelion symbolizes precarious Black life that the system treats as disposable, yet the poem insists on seeing value and possibility.