See,
the past is present,
and we get what we got.
Closing our eyes to institutional racism
and the community ramifications of it
have rooted deeply in this culture
of ‘Believe the Non-Truths’ and
life is a bowl of cherries.
When human families are separated
and sold on the market as cattle,
fathers here, mothers there,
children and babies
elsewhere,
When a people have their culture,
language, spiritual connections,
wise elders, future aspirations
erased from their memory
for several generations,
When my father is whipped to death
and my mother and siblings suffer
the shame of rape and torture
by those that claim to own
them even after death,
When the race of cattle people
are prevented from educating
themselves under the threat
of a painfully hellish death,
are then called stupid,
When the Son of God on the cross
is beaten into these slave people
until they come to accept Him
as the Savior come to save
them from themselves,
When a great proclamation emancipates
this enslaved population of people,
unrooted as families with assets
of Zero and an institutional
system of suppression,
See,
the past is present,
and we get what we got.
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