What If You’re Wrong?

What if you’re wrong?

What if your red lines and barricades,

your metal bars and animal cages

the spaces you’ve designation for:

the children, 

the “other”,

the heirs of many shades of melanin

are wrong?

Have you ever considered

that your prejudice

may be masquerading

as political correctness, politeness,

maintenance of the status

quo as you punch your ally card,

hours clocked for the month

but never doing the work?

the introspection;

the late night searching;

the self realization that 

while you can play a part in 

the solution, you may be a part 

of the problem too.

In this continued struggle marked

by the Twentieth century

we’re still observing the gradual death

of evil. The exploited masses still

of evil. The exploited masses still

quest for freedom.

We stand here still, waiting 

for the other shoe of justice

to drop. The truth is,

injustice is never discarded

in a timely fashion.

Your “wait” 

sounds an awful lot like

our “never”; so we follow

your lead and we take

when the takings good

your newscasters act as heralds

disseminating false truths,

reporting protests far and wide of a 

destructive nature. When 

many our direct actions had a nonviolent tone

the violence only shepharded in

at the other end of your military gear

as you gassed them to tears

bullets of rubber permeating crowds.

Are we imagining it?

When 6, then 7, almost 8pm struck

and we all observed that

while some colors might breed fear,

it is time and time again

the bodies of others who

perpetuate it.

And it is those same instigators

who seem to go unpunished.

So what if you’re wrong?

We’re so caught up in this lie

swept up in the tide 

of a sea of red.

Running red with that which was shed

from the ghosts of injustices past.

What if those others who are awake,

attuned to moral consciousness

who stand against the current pharos,

today’s keepers of the status quo

are the ones our grandparents 

had been hoping for.

What if the tension you create

with your acts of suppression

provide just the pressure needed

to free ourselves from the bondage

of half truths.

As we stare back at you

with signs

to picket, and hearts

strong, and voices

clear and true,

will you sit at our negotiation table?

still refusing to make hard decisions?

Will you continue to settle

for an absence of tension,

a negative peace?