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