Injustice

Audacity

Friday February 19th was my schools Black History Assembly day. We had a packed house and I read my poem Black and Beautiful. Some kids were offended by what I had to say. That's natural but what pissed me off was that when I got off stage one kid in particular decided it'd be okay to curse me out and tell me to shut up. You NEVER tell an artist who just got done expressing themselves to shut up. Needless to say I was pissed and just after his friend dragged him out of the auditorium before he could do something really stupid I sat down and started furiously typing this. This is for every single non black person that has the nerve to call us liars for sharing our experiences. And to my fellow blacks. NEVER let them silence you.

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I raise my voice

I speak the truth

But nothing is ever good enough for you

You get mad because it's not what you want to hear

I guess my message can't ever be clear.

How many more have to die before you open

Those ignorant eyes?

Police brutality has not ended

and it goes on because people like you keep it defended.

Trayvon Martin is dead and gone

When the person who perceived him as a threat

FOLLOWED him out of his own neighborhood and beyond

Eric Garner has passed on

After an illegal chokehold took him that dawn

Little innocent Tamir Rice is dead

He only played with a toy

"But he deserved it," they said.

The list of names goes on and on

But you're not listening you're already gone

And yet you have the audacity to tell me

I'm speaking falsities for talking about the brutality.

Newsflash your white anger means nothing to me.

Not after years of oppression and undeserved aggression.

It's the same anger we saw then when we were being murdered on the streets

and none of you cared.

The same anger we saw when we spoke up cuz we dared to care.

Well I DARE to tell you the truth. Because it is the reality I live.

And fighting for everyone like me to be happy is a cause to myself I will happily give.

I dare to tell you what I see.

And you are not all obligated to listen to me.

Now don't get me wrong I love all my white friends and family.

But I will not be silenced in the face of any violence.

There will be no fool made of me.

My experience is mine to speak about

And shared by others who give me the strength to speak out.

You have the opportunity to get up and walk away

But instead you want to shut me down.

I believe that proves some kind of dismay.

It's obvious you feel some kind of guilt

But in the face of your discomfort I will not wilt

For these few moments you may feel like an outsider

But we feel that way all the time while y'all are none the wiser.

Yes I have the audacity to speak.

Because you did not have the experience of your white grandma saying

"You need to go perm your hair because your raggedy appearance casts a shadow on my face"

Simply because your natural hair was too "nappy" for her tastes.

You've never had that same grandmother tell you she didn't want you to go natural or rock a fro

Because black natural hair is ugly NO you've never had that.

You've never had to hear "Don't stay in the sun too long because you'll get "too" dark"

As if your already darker skin is some kind of curse mark.

You've never had a family member say they want nothing to do with you

Because the black in you is so horrible they can't stay near to you.

You've never been the only black in a group of white kids doing something they shouldn't

To get in trouble for it as if you're definitely a criminal but if those white kids were told not to do that stupid thing again they wouldn't.

You didn't have that teacher in the 1st and 3rd grade who got only you in trouble for simple things kids do because the other kids happened to be many shades lighter than you.

You've never had a little brother or sister be afraid to be near police because

"Sis I know what they'll do to people who look like me."

You've never watched a black star get hated for the same things

A white star gets praised for

You've never had a crooked cop drudge up false charges against your brother

And watch the man lock him behind the jail doors.

You've never had to hear people say

Stop talking about it it'll go away

And then turn around and watch them find a secret racist society

In a sorority the very next day.

NO you didn't have to experience that.

These are our experiences

This speech is our voices rising in unity to condemn

The unfairness we've been dealt in life

And there is nothing you can say to me that'll make me give up this fight.

So you can turn your blind eye

You can choose not to listen

But you best curb that desire

To call me a damned liar

Because you do not live

This experience.

We will raise our voices until we knock down this joint

And there is nothing you can say to me that won't prove my point.

We are not dogs to be kicked and silenced when we speak out

Your treatment of us as such is what I'm talking about.

So YES. I have the audacity to speak out.

I have the audacity to stand up.

I have the audacity to fight back.

I have the audacity to cry for my brothers and sisters.

Yes I have the audacity to slam you with fact after fact

Bad experience after bad experience

Until your brain melts from your inability to comprehend how any of that could be.

Because it should have been my right

My freedom to do so in the first place.