Most of the time you’ll find me chilling. Laid back, just being Black and minding my business. Saying, it is what it is. And that’s it, that’s all!
But lately I’ve been feeling a certain kind of way in the wake of the shooting of Jacob Blake. In the wake of being constantly reminded that America is not so great!
I mean, I’ve been trying to keep the dream afloat. But James Brown is no longer around, saying loud, I’m Black and I’m proud! And B.B. King is not singing the blues to help me cope. We are losing our souls as Black folks!
Tell me, how do we make America great again? America was only great because we soaked up its hate and swept it under a rug. Because we refused to live by the sword and waited on the Lord. That’s what kept this divided country united.
It wasn’t racism but resiliency — our hope, our strength, our turning the other cheek. That’s what’s kept America thriving. Stockholm syndrome. Four hundred years of being dethroned.
It used to be, while the illuminati was leaving black bodies rotting, I would escape into my fantasies. But now I’m being forced to see I’m just a fugitive slave in these divided states. Bull Conner and his dogs have removed my brain fog.
A civil rights leader is dead and so is a Black Panther. And America is dealing with a virus more deadly than the flu. A metastasizing cancer. A crippling disease that has gouged out the eyes of liberty and left her hollowed sockets bleeding into the Atlantic.
And the tired and poor, who cannot breathe, are still unfree, teeming ashore, unhuddled. Wretched and refused and incarcerated in masses. From across the Atlantic to San Quentin, Soledad, California Institute for Women, and Chowchilla. Attica, Rikers, Angola and Marion. All of my brothers and sisters are suffering — just for being Black as a matter of fact!
Who said racism is dead? I knew it all along, racism lives on. It’s venom is spewing. We’re stewing in its fake news, and fake political feuds and dog whistles.
While we’re screaming Black Lives Matter and marching in the streets, racism is growling, bearing its teeth at George Floyd murals reminiscent of the Sphinx. It’s vandalizing shrines to Breonna, while secretly worshipping the Black Madonna.
Now Kenosha is burning, like Oakland and Portland, Seattle and Washington. And I passively sit in this pit of blasphemy, like nothing is happening. But the message is resonating.
We’re returning to the misery of the 1960s. Fanning are the fiery flames of history. And it’s the President I have to thank for not deceiving me, for being so frank with his hate and refusing to say ‘ Black lives matter’ to a fugitive slave.
For forcing me awake to see,
How fragile it is to be free;
For reminding me that liberty is bleeding.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Here are our ground rules:
- You must credit Prison Journalism Project. In the byline, we prefer “[Author Name], Prison Journalism Project.” At the top of the text of your story, please include a line that says: “This story was originally published by Prison Journalism Project” and include a link to the article.
- No republishing of photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission. Please contact inquiries@prisonjournalismproject.org.
- No editing the content, including the headline, except to reflect changes in time, location and editorial style. For example, changing, “today” to “last week,” or San Quentin to San Quentin, California. You can also make minor revisions for style or headline size, and you can trim stories for space. You must also retain all original hyperlinks, including links to the Prison Journalism Project newsletters.
- No translation of our stories into another language without specific permission. Please contact inquiries@prisonjournalismproject.org.
- No selling ads against our stories, but you can publish it on a page with ads that you’ve already sold.
- No reselling or syndicating our stories, including on platforms or apps like Apple News or Google News. You also can’t republish our work automatically or all at once. Please select them individually.
- No scraping our website or using our stories to populate websites designed to improve search rankings or gain revenue from network-based advertisements.
- Any site our stories appear on must have a prominent and effective way to contact you.
- If we send you a request to remove our story, you must do so immediately.
- If you share republished stories on social media, please tag Prison Journalism Project. We have official accounts on Twitter (@prisonjourn), Facebook (@prisonjournalism), Instagram (@prisonjournalism) and Linked In.
- Let us know when you share the story. Send us a note, so we can keep track.
Liberty is Bleeding
