ferguson
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What do I have to do?
What do I have to do to show you I’m Human?
I breathe this air, just like you
walk this land just like you
brush my hair as do you
I place my hand on my heart and my arm on my back
and I begin to sing then I begin to reflect
on all the people who gave their lives so I could live
So I could come to this event where all these people
"We are all the same,"
they say.
They lie.
We are not the same,
you and I.
We are different, two sides
of one coin
And while they say,
"You are equal"
they mean
White power is a phrase
That still make me cringe.
I haven't done anything,
So why do they look at me with anger
And hatred,
Burning coals for eyes,
And a hard line where a mouth
Used to be.
Another child.
Another friend.
Another son.
Another daughter.
Another neighbor.
Another cousin.
Another mother.
Another father.
Another lover.
Another classmate.
Your existence is never trivialYour sins are always forgivableYour crimes are all permissibleNo matter how despicableYou’ll never be held accountable
It is the color of my skin and the texture of my hair,
which makes people create assumptions that are not are not there.
Name me as the hope of the slaves
Frame me in my mothers gaze
Let me breathe in open air
Even though we've yet to make it there
Black bodies sway in time
With the drums playing in my mind.
we are under the comfort
that blooming flowers are bright
that they shine like stars in a glistening night--
that they are good and small, like a beacon of light--
but we can't tell what's a flower
Ferguson
It happens every day and no one notices
It’s not the first time shots were fired
At an innocent black man in the streets
This time Ferguson next time Washington
I'm afraid to raise sons in this world.Black men who will be profiled and targeted from my womb,
He was just a normal person
He was walking down t;he street
He was just a normal person
Till he got shot by the police
He was just a normal person
Till it all broke loose
Now he's layin on the street
Stop! Don't shoot! I'm unarmed
The words of an African-American male about to take his last breath
Another day
Another dawn
Another young black male killed
As we are left to mourn
"Liberty and Justice for All",
or so they say.
These words seldom ring truthfully
Every time
I try to love my nation
Another black teenager shot dead in the street,
Break down
Shimmer and crumple
Let them glide with a stride so perplex
As men begin to withstand the precocious
Demands of his brethren
Let the people speak
#twitter is my biggest distraction
#distracted
Your being distracted
Hypnotized by hashtags memorized by the masses old slaves to the new master
The media is trying to make a fool out of us
This is for my brothers and my sisters full of ideas, creativity, and passion. This is for those young black lives, the eighteen and nineteen year olds trying to make it to graduation or college orientation.
Cease and desist
Or else suffer the consequence
We live in a police state
Corruption is rampant
Forces of racists and brutatlity reign
Another innocent gunned down, bring a city to fame
They took an oath of protections
and we gave them are trust.
Yet in the end it's those we trust our protectors.
That are our demise.
Stressing to make the deadlines
I'm beginning to lose sleep
While Areas near make headlines
I find it hard to keep
My cool with all these protestors at my school
They hold signs with simple phrases
Dead
18
he was 18 and dead
young, no life lived yet
young black men are now forced to fret
because he's dead, 18 and dead
black
When Michael Brown died, his death was his own fault.
No one blamed the white man who was doing his job.
But people hax audacity to tell his mother her cries for her baby boy were too much.
This country was built off of the
blood, sweat, and tears
of those seen as less than human
Its greatness arose from the
bruised and exploited bodies of our ancestors
This is freedom.
This ain't black and white.
This ain't right
This ain't right
They shout confused,
confined behind the lines.
What's it gonna be, press?
It's printed in black and white.
But there was RED.
These days, we hold gunsAt the ones we onceHeld our guns for.We give out freedomAs a broken promise.We don’t care
All I ask is to be respected, I will not be neglected, you're surprise of an uprise of people acting reckless, years of peace and protest why we still feel helpless, the leaders who promoted peace, became decease, now what does that sa
All eyes on you
Its time to tell the truth
We finally got the spotlight camera action
We must take action
So we must act
Not on a stage with the man pulling the strings
This is not oz
What would life be for me
If I were born to another family
How different could it really be?
To be amongst the sea of poverty
Rather then the throne of affluency
How different would I see?
There's words in my brain
The pressure's buildin' up
They gotta get out
My filter gives up
My grandmother frequently talks of the good old days,
the days that she thought were lost in a maze
she speaks of the times when all was right
and only dancing happened at night.
The burning crosses flow through my veins
Alloyed with the remnants of black berets and raised fists
The screens glow with the tide of imminent revolution
A path marched
Lives disposable
Cops are white,
Victims are black,
If they didn't attack cops,
maybe they wouldn't get shot.
The First Amendement
The ultimate rule we live by
Abused and neglected,
Just like those fighting in Ferguson,
Those same warriors fighting for our country,
Many become blind to their actions,
is that I am not a cop with a badge and a gun
tasked to serve and protect
nor am I a black father or mother or brother
grieving over lost family or friend
nor am I a part of a community where
I wake up to a sea of white.
Is this what society is preparing me for?
Being marginalized as "that black girl".
I expected more.
Perhaps my standards were too high,
You may play me out and have the media cover me up and show me as a lie.but this kind of rage and heartache can never be covered up with all the bloodshed flowing in the street, and many not understanding why
Look at him run
His big stupid feet
We gonna kill
A nigga on the street
Short nigga, dumb nigga
Watch him fall
Dark nigga, light nigga
Kill em' all
White supremacy can't be beat
Bullet to the heart
Hands up in surrender
White flag of peace
But he's going under
Childhood rebellion
Fighting back
Slam for Ferguson, this one's called.
But I'm so far away;
My info comes from research
Not personal experience
I could never understand
Your pain.
Losing a son
Because of one
Expressing how I feel
sometimes confuse me a great deal
Can I understand myself?
Or better yet can you?
I dont always say what I feel
But when I do I keep it real
Anywhere any place
Am I a black male?
do you judge me by my skin?
or am I a male who is black?
do you acknowledge my dark skin?
Ignorance will tell you alot about me
I am from the hood
always up to no good
The terror in your eyes
The sweat in he palm your hands
As your timid arms rised
The unforgettable sentence "I give up"
Were the last words we heard from Brown
Followed by the sixth fatal shot
Judgement and speculations
Have always been passed over me
Always been placed on me
By family
By friends
By people I don't even know
Why is this?
For I am not here to speak my worth, To tell my side of the story
You hear him, his bragging, his nagging, his lying and changing his story
He doesnt know that I know the truth, and that God is my witness.
I had a dream,
Then I open my eyes
And I realized.
I live in a damage world.
Where man made fact is fiction.
And man made fiction is "common truths" usually diction.
I know how the world ends
It ends with racism and too much diversity
It ends with riots and corruption
It ends with dominance and death
It ends with war for all and peace for none
Why is this nation's generation living wrong? Speaking words of stupidity and never handling the business in making the right decision.
Justice for all?
Damn near justice for none!
People die everyday,
Because the world can't control their guns
Innocent people die in vain.
If the police do a crime,
Is it ok?
America: Land of the Oppressed, Home of the Cowards
I am sick of our society
I am sick of the inequality
Crowds going wild yet I'm laying in bed,
People being murdered but I was snoaring they said,
Cherries petals and whipcream all over the bed,
Blood and bodies mangled, rest in peace to the dead
You'd be surprised to figure out who hides behind these lies,
You'd be surprised to figure out who smiles while in disguise,
It's me, the girl who you see smiling all the time,
You captured kings and warriors and now our bloodline fights back
You underestimated the mystery and power behind those of us who are black
You saw our strength and resilience and said “They’ll be fine to do our work”
I can't sleep,
too much frustration on my mind,
Can't seem to sympathize with the decision made,
Wilson not charged, no justice served, he's free,
Mike is dead,
If a black man is shot and no white people are around to see it, will justice be served?
If the shooter is white, does it matter who was around to see it?
Blacks being killed like we have no Self worth or even meaning
But how can i expect the whites to respect us when we act so demeaning
Killing EACH OTHER like that other person didnt have a reason to live
I see something wrong with the fact that
From the time we are young we are instealed with our parents view toward the police
From the time we are young we know how the police view us
Ameica is the land of the free
Home of the brave
But how can we be brave
How can we be free?
If walking down a street
Means you need to bleed
Where are the free?
Because since all live in fear
I am a white girl
I am privledged
I need not fear if the police
will kill me for walking
down the street
But even though I'm white
I know that black lives matter
When the news tells lies
A boy shot in the street
A cop with a gun
Six witnesses and hard evidence
Darren Wilson is given paid leave rather than put behind bars
Ferguon is called a riot area
As they block off any reports
Tears fall from the eyes of his mother
Another black boy
the victim of a senceless murder
we teach or boys not to join gangs
or sell drugs
You can be more than a thug
Protect and Serve
These are the words
Of the men who swore
To potect us
Not Kill and enslave
And dreadfully maim
The people around us
To keep the peace
Oh tell me why
Such a tragedy has foretaken
just like that,
It has left the country shaken
I need an answer
Why did you shoot a poor boy?
He didn't carry a gun
He didn't run
When you think about it....
OUR people have always been treated badly,
for many reasons I know and I don't know.
Webact a certain way to be downgraded by people who can't even give us
RESPECT.
Another black man has fallen victim to the hands of the white man
If you can, look past the smoke, deafen yourself to the screams and shouts
Can you see the hate? Up there, just drifting just above the fiery slate.
Guns, violence, fear, mistrust,
No Justice
What happen to eqaulity and safety
in
America
We recite land of the free
while my fellow brothers are getting shot
Hey! This is a poem that I wrote describing the unfair economic system in America and how I feel being a woman of color in the USA and the daughter of refugees.
Wolves feed their sheep boot heels
Fatten them up and make them weak
Wolves have the power
The sheep have their fate
To be devoured
When a sheep gets too fat
From boot heels
The sheep feels weak
The hill of dirt is a volcano of small spackles of red lava,
The sting is a fresh memory of all who have experienced the burn,
The pain is still fresh
The bitter anger still prominent.
Those Negro Boys
Now you see,
I know something about them Negro boys,
The ones who don’t do nothing but sell weed and drugs,
We want to see these black boys fly
Cops rather see these black boys die
Unarmed, non voilent, minding theirs
My skin was brown , I got on the ground .
I complied but you shoot two rounds .
My name was Michael Brown .
When will we go to clarity and get out out of confusion.
Grasping the preceptions of ourselves based on the media's illusions.
How are we suppose to speak out for what's right
When it seems as if to peacefully protest is denied
So we haven't had the right?
To see past color was a dream
A vision past down by a king
How are we suppose to speak out for what's right
When it seems as if to peacefully protest is denied
So we haven't had the right?
To see past color was a dream
A vision past down by a king
Innocent: not responsible for or directly involved in an event yet suffering its consequences.
We only got one time, our life is defined Behind eyes of the man whose never had blood on his hands. They teach us virtues in class, but tell us to stab each other in the back when the time comes and there's only one spot open.
The last time I did something for myself
was last night
cause I went to sleep
like a zombie I climbed into bed
We only got one time, our life is defined Behind eyes of the man whose never had blood on his hands. They teach us virtues in class, but tell us to stab each other in the back when the time comes and there's only one spot open.
I'm not just scared for me, I'm scared for my brother and my nephews. I'm scared that this world we live in will never give them the chance to reach their potential because they are black men in America.
"Texas is the greatest state." -Some Texan
"Florida is the only place to live." -Some Floridian
Our eyes were once open, and now are closed shut.
At that moment we got the notion that our freedom was stolen a problem arose.
Has anyone noticed our world today?
A world where violence is on the rampage,
And the news portrays death day after day.
Scary Magicians/New Generation
Black Top Hat
Cheap products
Fooling me
Making me take my eyes off the true problems
Imaginations, sweet Candies and gummies
Chips and Alcohol on every corner
I can only imagine
What it's like to be
Watched.
Feared.
Seen as a threat.
When I walk,
When I drive,
When I go to school.
Never knowing
What is happening to our country?
A false image of justice, freedom, and democracy
How can we be any better than Russia, China, or even slavery?
Racism, Hatred, manipulation
It's all still there
