Tag Archives: injustice

In Search of Leadership

06 Monday Apr 2020

Posted by in Poetry

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Imbalanced lives and circumstances
Adversarial communications based on fallacy laden rhetoric
To ridicule
To evade
To incense
To ostracize
A collectivized canon
Too familiar
Too historical
Too avoided
Are those words that current actions are challenging most to hear and discuss
Colin nor Jim nor Muhammad nor all of the others in sports should be viewed through a planter’s lens
As physical labor incapable of formulating coherent thoughts and meaningful actions
Yet, the lens that has framed how a nation sees one another remains avoided like the plague.
All of this frames the context for what is most needed and missing at present
In search of leadership
Cannot start from a position of myopia
Skewed by self-interest at the expense of common decency and compassion
In search of leadership
Cannot start with fragmented politics nor oligarchical capitalism
Unfortunately, our search for leadership ended with 44 and hopefully will be reinstated by 46…

She Calls

24 Tuesday Apr 2018

Posted by in Poetry

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Silently beckoning movement forward
In fragmented steps
Destined to affect change
Tears radiate from sorrow
Entrenched in years of becoming
Or the denial thereof
As “American” as the fallacy of 1776
The ideal institution of indoctrination and subjugation
Of multiple differences who either were forced or willingly relented their uniqueness
Heritage
Language
Selfhood
Be mindful of the intoxicating effect of professed freedom
As it often renders us more dependent on the system outside of ourselves
Pawns on an uneven chess board
Without the benefit of a queen or rooks…
She has called for generations
Yet remains truly unheard
Through an unjust social and economic structure
An educational system of oppression and ideology
She calls yet remains unheard
She remains blinded by a misconceived belief in equality and hope
She desires and deserves as those who fed her ideals and coffers
She calls
She embodies
Yet does not ensure what she is believed to personify most
Freedom…

Assail

18 Saturday Feb 2017

Posted by in Poetry, Uncategorized

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A festive congregation of diverse forms
Gathered in joy and celebration
Unknowingly targeted for reasons
Subjectively debated and/or ignored
The setting places those who truly
Seek to be advocates and allies
In perilous conundrums
Scared hearts and bodies
Others cold and riddled
Propaganda is the last thing needed
Or wanted to be heard
By a family, lover, and/or friend of anyone
Who was assailed
Violated
Traumatized
Or even scapegoated
Identities fractured by incomplete
Or politicized objectives
The absolute truth may never truly be known
Yet we can concretely deduce
There are no true winners if all of us
Truly embrace our humanity
Advocacy means we share our voices with those
Who oppression continues to work to mute
Advocacy means not playing the victim-blaming game
That often becomes the means of historical erasure
With each last breath or aching wound
Whether physical or emotional
We have all lost and are under assail
Race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and culture among other aspects of our humanity
Have been further eroded
Orlando is just one of many examples of the
Detrimental effects of hate no matter the rationale
Love is not the solution when it is cloaked in complacency and inaction that shuns levels of sacrifice
Until each breath inhales this unalterable truth
There is no true we, yet the current national, societal, and political stances
Empower an assailant that has historically mutated
Each second, minute, hour, day, year, decade, and century
Known as the “American” F
Fear…

Timorous Island

29 Sunday Jan 2017

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Fixed in an outdated past
Where sheeted figures assailed the night
Burning lumber at the entries of those deemed inferior
A time fallacy was accepted truth to preserve a stunted status quo
One that could find a charred figure extended from a tree
We are supposedly beyond those moments within our history
Yet, as much as most continue to deny, as a nation, we have not healed
A legacy of contempt and hatred for those who are systematically “othered”
Made to disavow their identity and personhood to stay or enter
By the embodiment of a misguided arrogance
of a figurehead whose political stances should upset most’s sensibilities.
We are hoarders of a figmented freedom and truth as espoused.
We are fragmented factions of individuals who are forever works-in-progress towards ideals that were more exclusionary than collectivizing.
Internment camps, reservations, plantations, and forced institutionalization mark a history that is often absconded by revisionists.
As the rights of women continue to be decided by those who seek to objectify and posses them while not listening
oil continues to be placed at a premium in respect to the lives and traditions of Native Peoples.
Black lives are forever contemplated whether or not they matter.
Theoretical boarders are being replaced by executive orders and cowardly Congressional puppets.
Reclamation of antebellum doctrines and ideologies reignite divisions reminiscent of the North vs. South.
Those who love the same sex are denied all or many aspects of their civility because of debatable rules and rationales.
Allies are being made into enemies.
Neighbors are disrespected while simultaneously depended upon for their labor.
The continued poaching of a fragile morality is what remains.
Silence and pre-war isolationism didn’t work then and won’t work now.
While an audacity of hope was an idealistic battlecry
we are left with an undeniable truth on this metaphorical timorous island…

Sirens Blazing

24 Sunday May 2015

Posted by in Poetry, Racialization Impacts

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Sirens blazing
Shots fired
Lives lost
Tears flowing

Sirens blazing
Shots fired
Lives lost
Tears flowing

A vicious cycle plaguing a nation full of rage
Rage that was neither emancipated in the age of Lincoln
Nor transcended with the election of Obama
In the spirit of bell hooks,
Black Looks and Killing Rage
Are still points of contingency for The Souls of Black Folk

Where are our Ida B. Wells or Sojourner Truths as the noose is replaced by the shield?
As the white sheets that supposedly aided The Birth of a Nation appear to be replaced by the “women and men in blue”
Is this a visceral reaction to a troubling time in this nation’s history?
For some, the answer will ultimately be “yes” but for others it will be more of the status quo.

A status quo response to the historic oppression and denigration of a collection of people who seem to have never received the promise of humanity
A collection of people whose bodies are riddled with emotional, physical, psychological, and visual assaults

Perceptions that continue for Africana women in the manner in which their bodies are assailed in a land of Patriarchy
Perceptions that continue as men of African descent no matter how well groomed or dressed still receive the “clench your purse” and/or “lock your door” treatment

Sirens blazing
Shots fired
Lives lost
Tears flowing

Sirens blazing
Shots fired
Lives lost
Tears flowing

Bloody streets along dilapidated buildings
Underfunded communities make for easy targets
Not solely for the spectacle of media coverage but for the many corporate and venture capitalists who will undoubtedly swoop in for bargain prices to fulfill their duties of gentrification

Bye-bye Fourth Ward AKA Freedmen’s Town in Houston, TX
Bye-bye to as many indicators of the past that cannot be revised by our Educational Agencies and elected/appointed officials who wish to promote a particular narrative

Sirens blazing
Shots fired
Lives lost
Tears flowing

Sirens blazing
Shots fired
Lives lost
Tears flowing

Are chickens coming home to roost?
El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz once raised such a point
And we are still waiting for an explicit answer

Sirens
Shots
Lives
Tears…