White Lies

        White lies


Just another day in America

Headline: police brutality

Another black man who could not breathe


Riots and protests 

Victims blaming

How could we show we care any less? 


Not the reality I live in:

Running without fear

Why am I allowed to breathe,

Why aren’t you?


Protected by whiteness, 

I know no other reality in America.


The crime of living while black

I can’t wrap my head around this kind of thinking.


You have to be taught...

I never learned this lesson.


White utopia 

Why black lives still don’t matter.


Unlearn the hate

Face our past or it will never end.


Take our feet off the necks of black people

Stand with them

Or we are still complicit in their deaths.


Change the system, it won’t change itself

White people, let’s listen and learn 

What is the point of an America

Where my life matters and yours does not? 


I can breathe

Can you? 


I can run, 

Can you? 


My cell phone poses no threat

Does yours? 


I can hold a hairbrush

Can you?


If I watch birds, I’m safe

Are you? 


My skin means I’m not a target for the cops

What does your skin mean? 


I can sleep in safety 

Are you a sleeping threat? 


What reality can cross our great divide? 

How can I understand?

Can I stand in solidarity when I don’t share your reality? 


The sham of equality 

The doctrine of discovery, 

 When will we discover our white supremacists founding


Black lives matter

Even if not in America


I can breathe

When can black people breathe in safety? 


Police brutality same headline:

Another day


Land of free 

Land of the unfree

It’s the same land


Oh say can we see by the white supremacists light

Stars and hate forever


Not if I have a say! 


On the lynching tree


Raise the flag


Hand on our hearts 

We won’t pledge allegiance to your flag


Humanity has our allegiance 

Together we cannot be conquered

We refuse to yield 

To hate and to fear

We will not be overcome or be overthrown 

We have the numbers 

You have only the fear

And division as your ally


I can breathe 


Until black people can breathe as I can

We are a sham

Until black lives matter equally to mine 

American freedom is a lie


Equality means we can breathe free 

I can breathe 

My life matters 


How can I help black lives to matter? 

How can I help you to breathe?




 








 




 

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