For 400 years America has struggled with the racial hatred that enabled slavery and perpetuates inequity.  For untold thousands of years one people has subjugated and enslaved another.  Why can’t humanity rise above its hate?  Please, we must.  This is not a political post, or a racial post, or an activist post.  This is a human post, a poem begging for hope and love and equity.

Why in Heaven’s Name Can’t We Get There?

George Floyd: a name:
the name of a Man:
a Black Man:
an African-American man:
who wanted only to breathe:

To Breathe!

to breathe the crisp air of freedom:
to breathe kisses upon his children:
to breathe love to his beloved:
a Black Man who has gathered us together:
a world of all color:
in chant and march and rage:
in song:
in colorful earthy human song:
singing the name of every Man:
every Black Man:
every White Man:
every Yellow and Brown and Red Man:
subject to subjugation:
chafing and straining against the rough blistering cords of bondage:
singing the name of every Woman:
who hoped for her Child:
as good as any Child:
a Black Child or a White Child:
who dared to hope:
hope against We don’t want you! signs:
in the windows and on the doors:
hope against blood and bombs and broken bones:
hope against the burning, cutting ropes:
who dare to hope against that universal

NO!

He could not breathe:
another man pressed a knee on his neck:
and he could not breathe:
George Floyd:
the name of a Man:
a Black Man:
the name of every Child:
the name of every Woman:
the name of every Man:
the name of a nation:
a nation that cannot breathe:

We Want To Breathe!

the name of a nation of people who can barely breathe:
a nation of too many who do not know love, except:
the false love of defending what we think is our own:
which is no love at all:
but sticky, unctuous pride:
but a bashing-teeth hatred:
but a cheap rickety need to be better, somehow intrinsically better, than another:

How Absurd!

how absurd to think:

I am better than you:
better than anyone:
better than George Floyd:
better than any other human:
better than any other equal human:

Equal Equal Equal!

But we cannot seem to do it:
we cannot seem to allow any skin to be better than our own:
better: a strange notion we can reconcile only if we lie.

Well, we had better:
we had better stop chewing glass:
the broken glass of hate:
we had better stop swallowing the cutting nails of arrogance:
we had better put our arms around one another, and hold one another’s hands
and weep our declaration:

We are the same, you and I!

The Same!

with the same pleasant dreams:
with the same color of pounding blood:
with the same innate capacities:
for love and for hate;
for love, and for caring and kindness:
for helping a Sister:
for helping a Brother:
for helping a Daughter and a Son.

So:
come on:
come on out:
come on out of yourself:
give it all up:
let go of anything, of everything, that makes you less:
less than what you are:
less than what you can be:
be Equal
and
be Good
and
be Free . . .

(Image above by truthseeker08 from Pixabay)