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Black Lives Matter

June 2020

By N. ThomasPublished 3 years ago 9 min read
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Black Lives Matter
Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

You're tired of all the negative, depressing posts

and people making such a big deal over their radical stance.

You just want to be happy and live your life,

but did Tamir, Trayvon, and Breonna not deserve that same chance?

You can post about how appalled you are by the riots,

and you're so worried about the looting.

Where was all that disgust

when Loehmann and Zimmerman and McMichaels were shooting?

You insist on law and order when it's used to keep us in line,

and you condemn any degree of dissent.

Open your eyes because, as Stokely said,

the law of conscience is higher than the law of the government.

You're more devoted to order than justice,

preferring negative peace just to avoid tough conversations or fights.

You justify police killings if they claimed they thought they saw a gun

while you shout about your 2nd Amendment rights.

You tell us not to resist, to stay in line,

while simultaneously shouting in their faces, heavily armed.

We were shot and gassed and and arrested

while you walked away completely free and unharmed.

Instead of engaging in dialogue, you dismiss the protesters,

and you prefer to patronize and taunt.

Just weeks after you selfish hypocrites caused an uproar

over wearing a mask and not be able to eat at your favorite restaurant.

You write us off as extremists and racists

and say "all lives matter" while ignoring our plight.

We're saying we're anti-exploitation, anti-degradation, anti-oppression,

that doesn't mean we're anti-white.

You write us off as snowflakes and victims

because you believe in a mythical idea that equality was already achieved.

You have a shallow understanding of the facts

from romanticized, redacted, revised history books that you believed.

The status quo doesn't negatively effect you,

so you can afford to be deaf to the cries of these good folks.

You deny discrimination or privilege exist,

but you also deny scientific facts and claime that COVID was a hoax.

The current threat is having a brush, a bag of Skittles, a phone,

walking, shopping, driving, or sleeping while being Black.

But it's you who will have to explain and repent

for being on the wrong side of history when future generations look back.

Point seven demanded an immediate end to police brutality

and murder of Black people, but here we are over 50 years later.

But you have your nightsticks, your gas canisters, your pepper spray,

and your rubber bullets ready for the demonstrators.

You keep feeding me the line about a few bad apples,

but you can't even help using excessive force as we protest your brutality.

You've abused your power, declared open season

on those you're charged to protect, and we've had enough of the fatalities.

You say it's no different than Black-on-Black crime,

but we're stuck doing time while you all get free passes.

The standards need to be raised, the accountability present,

and like Pac said, Lady Liberty and Mrs. Justice need new glasses.

Ayana was 7, Sandra was 28, and Kathryn was 92

when you killed her and planted drugs in her home.

And how many more are there that we'll never know about

because it's nothing new, now we just have cameras on our phones.

You justify them killing us at will and are offended

that someone suggest that there's value to Black lives.

If you're being honest with yourself, are you more upset

that Mike Brown died or that Charles Kinsey survived?

Even worse, the churches sanction by the silence a soul-killing system,

but Sojourner said religion without humanity is very poor stuff.

Telling us that our present activities are untimely and unwise,

you won't acknowledge when enough is enough.

You pay lip service to the teachings of Jesus,

but indifference is also the opposite of love, not just hate.

And those who have felt the stinging darts of racism

don't want to keep hearing the word "wait."

Lukewarm acceptance is often much more bewildering

than outright rejection.

You say you understand the struggle,

but you can't be inconvenienced by this insurrection.

Where he stands in moments of challenge and controversy

is the ultimate measure of a man.

Your stifled words show complacency,

you chose the oppressor's side when you turned and ran.

Not protesting unjust situations

has made cowards of many men.

So don't stay quiet now and expect me to respect you

or continue to call you a friend.

Neutrality only helps the torturer, your silence a tragic sin,

so take a few moments for some self-reflection.

Niemoller reminds us that you need to speak out for others

before there's no one left to speak up for someone of your complexion.

You act like this is coming out of nowhere,

as if it hasn't been an ongoing issue for year.

We've spoken up, spoken out, led freedom rides and marches,

but our cries and pleas fell on deaf ears.

This wasn't your wake-up call,

the alarm has been going off, you just kept pressing snooze.

Now you want us to be more peaceful, but when Kaepernick took a knee,

you called for a boycott and burned all your Nike shoes.

You want us to calm down, but we can't stop now,

it took a week of protests to get you to listen to what we're asking for.

Every day we stood outside singing and asking to get in,

but now we're finally picking the lock and breaking down the door.

Reasons to live give reasons to die,

and Huey knew that revolutionaries are doomed men.

He didn't fear death itself but a death without meaning,

and it wasn't an issue of if, but when.

Take a look back at people like

Lamar, Medgar, Malcolm, Viola, Wharlest, James, Martin, Huey, and Fred.

Peaceful or militant, organizing sit-ins or inciting riots,

the activists and leaders always seem to end up dead.

You can jail the revolutionary, but you can't jail the revolution,

and now you fear your impending downfall.

There were dreamers, riders, prophets, panthers,

different people, different methods, but in the end you killed them all.

The road to freedom has always been stalked by death,

but even then you can't silence their voice.

Malcolm knew it was time for martyrs,

but Eric, George, Philando, Alton, and Delrawn weren't given a choice.

The clandestine racism is still lurking in the shadows around the nation,

perhaps much worse than many of you realized.

Forever fighting a degenerating sense of nobodiness,

our children being criminalized, our skin being weaponized.

Almost 60 years after the dream, 1 in 5 Blacks

are still smothering in poverty in the midst of an affluent society.

Always looking over their shoulder, living constantly at a tiptoe stance,

existing in a state of perpetual anxiety

Plagued by inner fears and outer resentment,

we still have to have "the talk" with our sons and try to find the words.

Ever since that rock landed on us,

we've been singing that trill song for freedom like the caged bird.

There's a righteous anger building, a legitimate and unavoidable impatience,

and we're claiming what is fair.

The cup of endurance has long since run over,

and we're no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair.

We're tired of these calculated efforts to perpetuate division between us,

don't tell us not to care.

We are tied in a single garment of destiny,

and injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

The whirlwinds of revolt

once again are shaking the foundations of our nation.

We want our place at the table, no more polite requests,

we're done waiting for an invitation.

We've been treated as second-class citizens,

and the people's yearning for freedom will always eventually manifest.

Through painful experience we know that freedom's never voluntarily given,

it must be demanded by the oppressed.

The privileged aren't going to give up their privileges willingly,

our first-class status must be demanded.

Change will not roll in on the wheels of inevitability,

our unequal rights won't automatically be expanded.

The keys won't simply be handed over, our status won't be upgraded

without a fight, we must demand accountability for the police.

Fred said the people we're asking are a bunch of megalomaniac warmongers

who don't even understand the meaning of peace.

Now the line has been drawn, the people are taking back our power,

this maltreatment we will no longer allow.

The negotiations are over, we're claiming all of our rights,

and we want them right here and right now.

You don't want to be uncomfortable or have to actually think,

you'd rather dismiss our concerns and avoid the conversation.

Assuming time has already healed our wounds,

but time itself has become an ally of the forces of social stagnation.

You've been trying your best to postpone the inevitable,

but justice too long delayed is justice denied.

You can try to paint us as the villains, twist our words, and write us off,

but now time and truth are on our side.

You've been trying to pacify us for decades because

it's more convenient for you, but the time is always ripe to do right.

We are not the creators of the tension,

merely exposing it to the world and bringing it to light.

We can't ignore the past of this great country,

we can't forget the genocides, we can't overlook the ongoing bigotry.

Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of injustice

to the solid rock of human dignity.

We need to educate ourselves and teach the children real history

so they know how to recognize when it's being repeated.

Throughout this country's history we've been held down,

and we may encounter defeats, but we must never be defeated.

So many ways you tried to keep us in line,

hobblings, castrations, rapes, and beatings, all of the historical scourges.

But change is coming, and it will take more constant struggle,

but we will continue until justice emerges.

We can't go back to complacency, we have to keep up the momentum

while the strong winds of change are blowing.

Harriet knew the only two options were liberty and death,

and she said don't ever stop, you have to keep going.

To realize the change we need, we need to be the leaders we seek,

and it will take persistence and hard work too.

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly but rarely acknowledge

the difficult and painful transition it had to go through.

Centuries later America has still defaulted on its promissory note,

and it's time for them to make good.

It's time to realize the promise of democracy

and transform this national elegy into a psalm of brotherhood.

Angela said it's not enough to liberate society

if we can't liberate our minds as well.

We have lessons to learn, destinies to fulfill,

voices to lift, and stories we need to tell.

Malcolm and Martin were mortal men,

and we can be like them, we already have the tools.

We must unite and rise up and live together as brothers

or we will perish together as fools.

The community must rise up as one

to halt a trend that leads inevitably to their total destruction.

We have neighborhoods to repair and kingdoms to build,

and it's time to start construction.

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About the Creator

N. Thomas

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