racial discrimination
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Is this life just?
Or just us
clining onto
misguided hope
for justice?
are we decieved
by misdeeds?
or sadly guided
by missed deeds?
It smells like..Fried chicken baked in bacon greaseLike collard greens Like stringbings Like baked beans with beef filled with heart diseaseLike pig intestinesThat all but one eats
Living on campus is too dangerous these days
As I have a fear of guns that will blaze
As school shootings are not a phase
So I commute
A thirty-five minute drive
Rojo, meaning red.
It is the hue of our blood and what keeps coursing through our veins to keep us alive.
On my flag it is the color to represent the union of Europe and the Americas,
misinterpreted by social context and ignorance overlooked and shunned
its brilliance is all too commonly mistaken for hate feared by those who are weak
but if you could just open your eyes and truly see
Power was not what I gained
Rather what I used
Knowledge was what I used
And also gained
POETRY was a time machine
I wrote of the anguish of a slave
To say he or she was not important
I'm tired of planting seeds
I wanna see them fruiting trees
But would you get down on your knees
To make your ego small as a bumblebee?
I need you to pollinate these ideas for me
Fake men afraid to have real conversations
Adverse persuasion
Scared of world view revelations
So the same hatin' going down in police stations
On the day my little brother begins to see race.
I'd like to think he will be ready for the talk I'll give him.
I'd like to think he will be ready to carry the weight of all the self-love I will place onto his shoulders.
Guns, drugs, sex, and more.
These are the things that make you a whore.
At least that’s what society has taught me, of course,
about things I don’t deal with, things that seem Morse.
You came unto me
Because you love me
And because I love you
I will protect you
And because you love me
You will defend me at every opportunity
And because I love you
Once upon a time,
In a world gray and blue
Lived an orphan,
A blossoming youth,
With golden hairs,
And deep blue eyes,
But rough, burnt skin,
And a foreign smile.
Oh, they say there is a beast,
who lives up the way.
In a house three stories tall,
and soon to crumble any day.
But I've seen whose song haunts the halls,
1992marks the yearmy grandmotherfinallymade it to the United States. 2017marks the year she becamea citizen. somewhere in betweenthose yearsI realizedAmericadoes not look like me.soon after came the realization thatAmerica only lovesa familiar fac
Dear America,
Why is it that I’m over $40,000 in debt with student loans and I have yet to make $40,000 a year?
Dear America,
Why is it that my blackness alone is a reason for our police to shoot and kill?
From day one, boys are taught to treat women with respect.
These boys then watch their fathers vote for a man who claims you must “treat women like shit”.
As I’m walking out, I see a different world.I stay looking at the news, telling myself this isn’t real.I feel like I’m always gonna be asking myself why. Why does the world have to be so racist.Why does the world have to have so much hatred. Why d
Racism does not exist,
says the well-off white man living on the hill
Racism does not exist,
Says the woman who had never been asked to drop her bag in the store
I am a black woman. I am the resistance
No matter what you try to do to me, I’ll always resist
Life...or death.
My body is the resistance.
Suzie and Manny drive down the road.
Suzie is light and Manny is dark.
But they don’t mind as their hands hold.
They make their way to the skate park
As they hear a siren bold.
Manny pulls over to remark
Every day I see not the land of the free
Not here where children on the streets unkind beg for scraps
Our government, the wolf in sheep’s clothing, giving the illusion of help
I Am American
I am American, home of the brave and free,
I am American, where dawns early light glints of the handgun cellphone, something in his pocket can't tell what it was BANG BANG BANG
We are praised for being independent, strong willed, and educated
But when we rise to fight for the rights of others, told:
“Don’t go burning your bra”
Change causes sunken ships.
See Starbucks, their cup lost sips.
An attack on America,
That absent-Christmas glory;
But even worse, are these fingerprints-
Don’t care for such stories.
O say can you see
Just how far we’ve come.
The injustice in our country
Is a battle far from won.
People line the streets
Over the screams of homosexuality,
of Islam.
The hope of immigrants,
victims.
Over the screams of gender equality
Enraged women,
men,
Freedom without persecution,
is ideal,
What does it mean to be free?
To be on your own
To be left alone
To not be under any control
Are people really free in America?
Of course
We're the land of the free
Everyone is welcome
What does it mean to be free?
To be on your own
To be left alone
To not be under any control
Are people really free in America?
Of course
We're the land of the free
Everyone is welcome
Sometimes she gazes at the world
outside her glass cage and reminisces on
how insignificant she is
in a world that can only neglect and belittle
I'm walk-walk-walking past the school I should call my own.
I was kicked out of the school close to my home.
Now I walk past head down, tears flowing
because my skin is darker then theirs.
The Amerikkkan flag with its colors so vibrant
Red for the billions of victims they silenced
Blue as the oceans we crosed
And as white as the policemen's skin responsible for the people I lost
What is the life of another boy worth?
Should I question the importance of why,
We suffer more loss on this planet called Earth?
A brown skinned boy with ambitions to fly.
Being of a darker complexion in this world I face challenges everyday.
From stares, to hurt remarks, and sometimes compliments.
Being of a darker complexion I’ve been bullied to beaten everyday in school when I was younger.
Dear nine yr old me You are a Nubian princess Wear your hair Dark and lovely A crown of curly wool On top of your head Do not pale in comparison To the brighter or whiter Your skin radiates Glows as bright as the night sky Above a flourishing Ede
It has no color
However, it has a some sort of mysterious form
Try to avoid it at all cost;
Societies believes it to be an evil spirit
People have encountered it multiple times
A poem inspired by the militarization of the border as well as the Chicano Movement.
Las hierlas
She was black,
And he was blue.
The other green,
And one red, too.
They spent each day,
Concerned what they had,
For it made black turn dark,
And blue turn sad.
Green became sick,
i grew up on the streets of albuquerque
when the sun hits you hard
son of hopscotch players, soñadores, border-crossers
life was beautiful
Another child.
Another friend.
Another son.
Another daughter.
Another neighbor.
Another cousin.
Another mother.
Another father.
Another lover.
Another classmate.
Someone said, “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know which one you’re going to get.”
It’s a simple statement. Innocent enough.
But what everyone should understand is chocolate is meant for more.
Being black is amazing
Hair waving, body banging, and never aging.
Everybody wants to be you, until it's time to be you
Who knew?
A Key to Basketball
First Step, take some reps
Step two tie your shoes
What's the third? Shoot it like Byrd
Last one? Be black.
Or white.
Or Asian.
I’m sorry people who look like me hurt you,
I’m sorry people who look like me whipped you,
I’m sorry people who look like me took away your freedom,
I’m sorry people who look like me brought pain and anguish daily,
I am brown, I am blue, I am green, I am white, I am human.
I am princess pink, I am mint green, I am blood red, I am human.
I am burnt orange, I am sultry purple, I am human.
I am midnight black, I am human.
It's a free country, they said.
There are free rights, they said.
You won't be victimized because of your unchangeable aspects, they said.
They said that everyone will be treated equal in the United States of America.
to survive
in your skin
in this dead place
you participate in humor
that allowed them to see you
I dream of a world without discrimination,
Where peace exists and happiness is the definition of life.
I can hear your snickers and your laughs,
Evidently you make no effort to conceal them,
But has it ever occurred to you-
That what I am is not under my control?
I can hear your snickers and your laughs,
Evidently you make no effort to conceal them,
But has it ever occurred to you-
I.
Where do the days go
When a mind smooths itself above
The rippling bubble
Aimlessly resting
Unaware of the big pop.
Where will the days go?
II.
Old
I am an African, an African
taken from my homeland and
brought into a place where I am known as
being "inferior" Why was this happening?
Do I not shed blood and cry as any other
I believe there are more than a lot of ways you can die.
But through my eyes there is only one way to live life.
You gotta live it to the fullest but not eat it all away.
Nigger, to me, sounds like nooses and hangings.
It sounds like, "Whites Only," and "No Coloreds Allowed."
It sounds like, "we shall overcome" marches -
like overcoming was the only thing my people knew how to do.
One heart, one mind
All of our fates, intertwined
Campaigns, rallies all for one cause
Because we as a nation, belong under God
Who made man in his own image
Gave us the power to make our decisions
I.
Think of a Polaroid,
with its thick, white border around my
snapshot of Kadeem,
little boy with shiny onyx skin
squatting behind white bars
on my uncle’s porch
by himself.
