Melanin stains the flesh of the oppressed like blood-soaked shirts from soaring whips that part cells upon backs of brown colored men
Broken bones swing from limbs of oaks serenading the roar of hatred like clashing symbols merged by a warm breeze
Wind chimes in the smell of decaying hopes from men stolen from their mother’s awaiting embrace
Fathers comb through streets of nappy degradation for sons lost in the tightness of fates womb
Tears roll down cheeks of men marginalized by false superiority built upon creations of muted complexions
Creations that sense God’s withholding of a key pigmentation ingredient, that is soiled into our flesh, is God's bestowment of dominion over all that possess it
And when the oppressed begin to taste freedom
Hurled bombs from white hands fell upon doors of barricaded churches
Tied ankles of torn temples gallop through muddy streets
Various forms of systemic barricades constructed and protected by laws in foreign land
Black knees that kneel in protest spark outrage while white kneeling knees that silence the cries of depleting life are ignored
Debates flourish as justification flutters from tightened lips speaking words to prove why a man deserves death
And yes, the reward of sin is death, but God, you gave us life
And it is by your sacrifice that we find why he deserves to live
For we all have fallen short
If we get what we deserve in our shortness none of us should live very long
*Pause...
The head of a black boy, in pursuit of home, covered by a simple hoodie was chased and killed by a man chasing the threat of his pigmentation
Melanin,
The sin of all mankind for being drenched upon the skin of some of mankind
The more that God gave to us was not asked for by us
So why must we suffer for His gift
Why must we fight your hatred when the crime of complexion was not committed by us
However, because we are in possession of it your eyes lay guilt upon us
Our innocence is saturated in Gods divine inability to do no wrong
There we find immunity
Yet still we must suffer persecution
*Pause...
We escaped binding shackles
Yet,
Still remain bound to perceptions of men that stand proudly on flooded bloody streets
If it means they can watch another son of ours drown by the very waters they released
WE OBJECT!
And we march through the very streets our brothers lay upon
Each step splattering their blood over the makeup of men until it washes away their sins
We gather with signs that read snippets from hearts of weary children that only desire to feel safe in a world that says they don’t feel safe... with them.. feeling safe
*Pause...
I want to be able to make mistakes
Like my brothers of varied privilege
And know that the same mistake will get the same result for us both
I want to get pulled over as a 38 year old man and not have to gather every single item I’m to have before the police officer reaches my window
So I don’t have to reach or move in a way that alarms him or her
*Pause...
I want my son to make it home
I want my son to make it home
I want my son to make it home
WE WANT OUR SONS TO MAKE IT HOME
And the thought that he may not because the color of his skin puts you at a greater level of uneasy... is the crime
No, this is not the time to lecture me about my brother when you can only see a surfaced level of crime he has committed against me
There are roots that go further into the depths of our short history than the stats you found can show
It’s the crack you introduced to our mothers and fathers with no aid as it ravaged our communities
It’s redlining to keep us in a state of want and poverty in the areas you wanted us to have
That is until you want them back and blatant unrepentant gentrification uproots and migrates the herd to a new area of lack
It’s overcrowded schools with underpaid teachers in impoverished neighborhoods that see little growth
It's funded jails that make profit off its residence
And where there is profit to reap there must be lives of men for you to sow
And if you must sow a life it mustn’t be your sons or your fathers that you sacrifice for gain
It was ours….It is ours
It’s the higher jail sentences you gave men to keep them away from their families
It’s the son’s, your greed left fatherless, that grew up to leave their sons as well
And it was the basterdized boys that found solace in drug ravaged ghettos
Its decades of devaluing a race and inadvertently teaching them how to devalue one another
It’s calculating years of breathing lies into the ears of our daughters
Telling them their hair, their shape, their personalities are not desirable by the world until you adopt a level of appropriation that makes it so
It’s showing our sons that the only roles they play are gangsters and criminals and thugs
Racism
Has a generational lingering that your stats on black on black crime will not show
*Pause....
So, if it is justice you seek
To God you must relay your accusations
For it was He who decided to wrap us in this skin
Yet it is you that have decided to wrap yourself in hate
Now it is us that have decided to wrap ourselves in self-love
We are not responsible for the hate your lineage has shown
We are merely the creation
I’ve yielded my heart to the guiltless mercy of God
The defense rests