by Crystal Wesley
I feel swindled.
Bamboozled.
My millennial past has lied.
Long lived a hatred inside my “friends”
That I thought with ancestry had died.
I knew racial issues still exist,
But they were few and far between.
Yet with the emergence of one figure,
New faces on old bodies are seen.
I feel purchased and returned;
Bought and sold, bought and sold;
The currency?
My hair, my hip hop, my coolness, my Black gold.
I was token in the 90’s and early 2000’s;
A rite of passage to enjoy a pastime with my counsel.
An image you sought,
An image you gained;
Through our “friendship” that earned you cool points and a name.
Now I am nothing to you,
A black spec in your past;
My well-being, my life, my rights
Eh! Who cares about that?
And it is not just I who you offend my “friends”
You poke fun at religion and degrade women
You find justice in the emphasis of people’s difference
And social degradation based on sexual preference.
Deport my Mexican brothers and sisters,
“Build a wall” you say,
“They are all bad and must go”
But their food and life’s work can stay.
Let’s sequester ourselves in fear,
And reject all those in need.
Let’s ignore our human duties,
And just send a brave few to bleed.
To die…
Peace is what we call for
For love and harmony we pray
Then we leave our church on Sunday
To hate each other the very next day
Why???
Because we pray different,
Look different,
Love different.
How??
Maybe not in what we say or do,
But in the undercurrent of the tragedies we turn our heads to.
There is work to be done,
And if we listen to the wise,
Our future is still bright;
Like Maya Angelou we can rise.
So my friends the choice is yours.
Is this what we have become?
Or a notch in the belt of freedom?
Another battle has begun.
Fight, my friends.
Category: Poetry, SNHU Creative Writing, SNHU online creative writing, SNHU Student