Innocence In Clint Smith's Playground Elegy

Many parents assume the role of protecting their kin’s innocence. Fortunate children spend early childhood in bliss, happily unaware of the horror of life their parents delicately veil under love, toys, and children’s television shows. As they grow, so does their curiosity. Through experience, they begin to question their environment and pose more complicated questions in which no flowery explanation exists, where parents remain unable to create an analogy where the good guy wins and the bad guy learns a lesson. For example, how does one explain racism to a six-year-old who lacks the capacity to understand the concept of hatred? Who would look forward to the horrifying task of sitting down with a child and telling them how some people commit

Clint Smith, in his poem, Playground Elegy, perfectly exemplifies the leap from innocence to experience by questioning why his mother taught him that raising his hands is for excitement when sliding down a slide instead of for the police during a stop to avoid brutality. To begin, Smith takes a few stanzas to reminisce on a childhood memory, then provides a striking image of a child killed by latent racism. Next, he questions his mother’s intent in never teaching him about racism. Thus, Smith creates a complex association with the speaker's initially innocent memory by comparing sliding down a slide to a child dying on the streets to strengthen the importance of activism against racism. Smith begins the poem by recalling the speaker’s childhood memories. The younger speaker describes sliding down a slide. They “remember reaching the bottom, smiling consuming half of [their] face, hands still in the air because [they] didn’t want it to stop” (Smith 5-7). Smith sets a blissful tone as the child creates an everlasting

After the police found him limping down the sidewalk in a residential neighborhood, they swarmed his location with police cars. The officers then took turns beating him with riot clubs, causing damage to his skull, which proved to be fatal three days later (Cochrane). Smith could possibly make the claim that instead of running, Nichols should have entirely complied with the police officers, exiting the car under his own will with his hands in the air instead of resisting, repeatedly stating that he did nothing wrong. Of course, the officers undoubtedly used excessive force, as ruled in court in late January of 2024, but one could speculate that Smith’s method of raising his hands to live could have increased the odds of Tyre Nichols. In short, Smith realizes through the speaker that his mother could have taught him to raise his hands at an early age to protect him from police brutality, as exemplified by the unfortunate death of Tyre Nichols. In conclusion, Smith begins Playground Elegy with an innocent childhood memory, which he compares to the death of a child due to police