Blatant

You are not being replaced.

You exist alongside families that were displaced.

There is no a war on your favorite holidays.

You can keep your consumer-fueled craze.

Your statues did not represent something that should be celebrated.

You own a history of violence that hate and greed created.

Your bathrooms are not a dangerous place.

Your schools are dangerous but you refuse to look the problem in the face.

Nobody is taking your job away.

You wouldn’t work some jobs no matter how much it paid.

Your way of life is not being threatened.

The threat we’re all facing should be a life lesson.

 

The Things We Do To Our Kids

We give our children our voice without knowing it.
and they sound just like us.

The intonations.

The verbiage.

Thought processes.

Values and beliefs.

Even those that rebel can’t escape it.
They all end up in some capacity like the blank slate before them.
Weather does that to everything over time.
You can’t deny nature without great effort.

The things we do to our kids aren’t right.

Simply through living we tell them how to live and how others should live.

In our own biases we give them bias.
In our own hates we birth hate.
In our own love we birth love.

All of this through the words we choose so carelessly because we don’t know the impact they have.

Some do though, I guess.
Some realize the hate they give and the love they dole.
Some are aware of the biases they keep alive through another generation.

A mama’s boy and daddy’s little man.
Daddy’s princess and mama’s little girl.
All they want to do is please and when its all they know it’s so hard to come out of what’s ingrained inside of you.

You grow up knowing whats right and whats wrong through a keyhole.
It’s amazing what you see when you open the door.

 

Kneel

We kneel on a stage meant to stand,

because of those who cannot breathe,

and those black men who resemble black men,

so they must be the bad men,

who all look the same.

Others convicted by dark skin,

while wearing hooded sweatshirts.

A crime punishable by a line in the sand,

and a stand in the dark.

It’s not enough to follow their words,

and do as they say.

Because in a dark car, to some, a wallet looks like a gun.

And a peaceful man with his family,

is a child-abusing drugged thug.

A raucous New Years Eve with friends

invokes privilege for some to sleep it off,

but drawn guns and death for others,

all depending on the pigment in your skin.

Asking for change isn’t enough,

it doesn’t work because it’s different for them.

The people who are free from words that cut,

and vile sneers laid over hundreds of years,

cannot fathom oppression.

It needs to be shown in every sense.

Shown through protest on stages not designed for protest,

Shoved in the face of the blind so if they cannot see it,

then can hear it.

If they cannot hear it

they can feel it.

If they cannot feel it,

they can taste it.

And if they cannot taste it,

they can smell it.

People need to stand up for people.

Stand up to oppression.

Stand up to bigotry.

Stand up to hatred.

Stand up to racism, sexism, and homophobia.

And if you cannot stand up because of the weight of the blind,

kneel.