All lives matter
My life doesn't matter
Until all lives matter.
My life doesn't matter
Till we figure out
Darker ones do.
But...
But mine doesn't
If his doesn't
Or hers doesn't
And theirs don't.
Didn't we wreck
Their kingdoms,
Kidnap them,
Put them on boats?
Enslave them,
Rape their women,
Hanged them from trees
During Jim Crow?
Steal them back to slavery
Once they went "free"?
Think of the homesteads and mansions
They built "for free"
Standing today so prettily
In Charleston or Tennessee;
And how many "pickaninnies"
Did Jefferson poke?
Some "constitutionalist," that wanton bloke!
Think of pain inflicted by the whip
Just to speak,
And death by a gun or a rope.
Well, oddly enough
Death was freedom,
Death was dignity,
Death was home.
I haven't even mentioned
The Natives,
Cherokee, Creek,
Or Seminole;
They were black too,
Haven't you seen?
Burned their teepees,
Moved them West
Of the Mississippi,
Shot the Sioux at Wounded Knee;
Please remember
Them too, for them,
Not for me;
Those lives mattered then,
And so do We,
We are all Humanity,
Together,
Today, tomorrow, forever
Till we arrive to God's Throne,
Whenever that will be.
~ MR (August 1, 2016)