#35: Hello again, Mr. Crow

I guess I was just fooling myself

Thinking you were gone forever

You had just been hiding

In plain sight

I wasn't paying attention

Thinking everything was peachy and fine

You never went away

Colorblind society

Or just blind period

Ignoring the cultural divide

Saying there are no racial lines

A blind eye is no excuse

You’re just lying to yourself

Small slurs and subtle slights

Progress is a joke

Some work twice as hard

To get paid half as much

This is our post-racial country

Hatred because you don’t understand

Hurtful because you’re fearful

No one says that that’s the truth

But it is

Slavery was your father

Disproportionate incarceration your brother

Equality not part of the family

Your presence is a menace

Your presence as strong as ever

Hello again Mr. Crow

Don't fool yourself in to thinking we live in a post-racial society. Far from it. There are no cotton picking farms, but there are plenty of prisons and ghettos to segregate our society. It isn't overt, but it is happening. The war on drugs became a war on minorities. Urban diversity lead to white flight. The end of segregation begat subtle predatory lending (still happening today).

The scariest thing though, is that there is a bit of racism in all of us. Some people are outright hateful toward other races, but all of us struggle with racism in some way. A good question to ask yourself is, "Is my attitude towards other races and cultures fair or biased? If they are biased, why?" 

If a post-racial society is the goal, then an inherent and massive cultural shift would need to occur. The solid lines that form boundaries between our cultures and races would need to become dotted lines instead. At those boundaries is where common ground can be found and where understanding can be formed.

Of course, for anything to truly change, the dominant/majority culture must make the greatest effort as they are the culture with the most power. That would mean white people. The key to a post-racial society is white people. So if you are white, you can no longer be on the sidelines in the fight for equality, you have to be at the forefront if that is truly the goal.

#8 Tapestry

Tapestry

Tree

Nothing out there could make me more content

Then my sugar berry tree’s sweet summer scent

In the season its leaves, so lush and green

Butterflies flutter as hummingbirds sing

With shade from the leaves and branches to climb

These days off school are a glorious time

That front yard of my childhood, a kind memory

Made even sweeter by that sugar berry tree

Swing

I would play in that tree for days on end

So many games to play, worlds to pretend
I was king of the jungle, lord of the land

All of nature’s beasts obeyed my command

To add to such a marvelous thing

My papa attached to it a spectacular swing

Back and forth, to and fro

Flying around with nowhere to go

Love

First loves often become memories of the past

But my first love was also my last

A beautiful gorgeous blue eyed girl

Her presence made my insides swirl

I invited her to my yard to play

We sat in that swing, what a glorious day

I held her close all through the night

Love blossoming between black and white

Stares

Sitting on the swing, I stared deep in to her eyes
Pondering how such feelings could arise

It couldn't get better, just us on that swing

On top of the world, I felt like a king

As time moved on, passerby’s would stare
they’d mutter they’re judgments while casting a glare

Apparently they didn't like what they saw

I was a young black man, but I broke no law

  

Night

They burst through the door just past midnight

I was asleep in my bed, unaware of my plight

My love in tears she pointed and accused

I stared in disbelief, completely confused

A man with a gun yelled, “Is this him right here?”

He grabbed for my arm, I was frozen in fear

“Your filthy hands touched my daughter!”

He led me outside like a lamb to the slaughter

Yard

My front yard was now the place of my trial

Guilty the verdict by the rank and file

I guess I committed an unspeakable crime

But for my sentence, I would not do time

I looked at my love, but she wouldn't look back

I could not understand what brought this attack

I looked at my tree, for some sort of hope

But all I could see was my tree swings rope

Rope

Oh sweet sugar berry tree

All of their eyes stared murderously

I still don’t understand what I did wrong

Why society deemed that I can’t belong

They strung me up with the rope from my swing

And turned me in to a ghostly being

Who knew that love could bring such spite?

This is no place for black and white

This poem is inspired by (but not based on) the story of Lennon Lacy, a 17 year old who was found hanging from a swing in North Carolina. The police concluded it was suicide, however, further evidence is pointing to this being a lynching. In 2014. A lynching. In the United States. Terrible.