Black Lives Matter
Slavery ended,
But that did not end our suffering,
We left the plantations,
Only to be housed in tenements,
When war broke out,
We were assigned to Negro squads,
We were not good enough to be assigned with the White folks,
We weren’t even given the same supplies,
We had to fight for everything,
The right to drink water from all water fountains,
A place to sit on a bus,
We could not use public bathrooms because white people were afraid that they could get cooties from us,
Yeah, slavery really ended,
We were used as guinea pigs for medical experiments,
Nobody raised an eyebrow,
Nobody cared if a Negro died,
We couldn’t even marry whites,
Miscegenation was against the Law,
Some White Christian colleges still believe that,
Yep,
Slavery sure did end,
But then we became Blacks,
Some among us spoke up against injustice,
Martin Luther King,
Killed by a white man,
Malcolm X,
Killed by other people of color who thought separate was better,
Hate powered those bullets,
The US did find a use for us,
While Whites were claiming that they had bone spurs in their feet and could not serve,
My brothers were dying in Vietnam,
That was okay until Uncle Sam needed more bodies,
Whites started dying also,
White America could no longer sit in the stands and watch the gladiators fight it out,
Oh no,
White blood being spilled,
What a tragedy?
What about all the thousands of blacks that died before?
Yep,
Slavery is over,
There are all kinds of ways that Blacks die in the US,
Black against black,
Killing each other with guns provided by the White-owned gun manufacturers,
Nobody cries until a white person dies,
We die like tuna in the fishing nets,
It’s okay,
We’re just Black,
White people protest “Not my problem,”
This is my life,
This is my reality,
And it doesn’t stop here,
COVID-19 comes along,
There is terror because the US doesn’t know how many will die,
And as statistics come in,
COVID-19 seems to like my kin,
A disproportionate number of my brothers and sisters are dying,
Families are being decimated,
I know that there are White folks thinking that God is doing their work,
Ridding the world of mud people,
I don’t even have to think about it,
I can see those White marchers crying that they can’t get their hair done,
Claiming that if someone gets sick,
So be it,
Commerce is more important than Black lives,
I think the hardest part of all is to see the President of the United States applauding these haters,
Saying all they want to do is get back to work,
What about me?
What about my family and loved ones?
Do you think that God sees things in black and white?
I doubt it,
Jesus may have died,
But he did not make White America the boss,
BLACK LIVES MATTER,
SLAVERY IS DEAD.
© Howard Kern April 21, 2020