On the verge to an end of 2017 – just one year into trumps term I think the world really learned
what’s really meant by the word protest: – watched as governments try to bend the environment
in spite of the scientists and let dictators infiltrate life to the extent that they’re in every screen
telling people what to believe and to hate a man they see on tv on one knee in front of the flag
but they’re okay with using the word fag and act like they don’t have a clue Dr King was killed
while still in his suit
–
I wonder how much farther this will all go – because feels like we’re stuck in a reality tv show –
where they’re legislating love and haven’t risen above the drug of entertainment;
where enslavement is the real name of western society’s game still called democracy
but use policy to turn the american dream info a lottery; commit corporate robbery
while denying that there’s inequality
–
Because though I was taught this country’s founders believed all men were created equal,
they prayed under steeples built by people who were denied rights for not being white
and justified it with the philosophy that people could be property – and because of that it’s
poor tact to say say all lives matter: it lacks perspective and uses color as a directive instead of
perspective
–
And yeah: sometimes protesting can feel useless and like writing isn’t the same as fighting;
a waste of energy if I’m just scribbling a bunch of “let it bes” – but what else am I supposed
to do when I see politicians playing on people’s weak spots like cheap slots and
feed us pills to pop just to cope until we’re too numb to hope; become junkies hooked
on nationalism and fascism that can’t see patriotism for the extremism it is or admit that
prisons and armored cars are paid for by putting minorities behind bars
–
But when anyone in my generation speaks out we get told to keep out – get called cheap
millennials that don’t even know in general what it’s really like to fear – but let’s be clear
that from here on out we’re inheriting a world on the brink – so how am I supposed to
sleep when I can’t help but think my niece and nephew will have to hear excuses
for all the abuses and pollution that the corporate prostitutes used to steal their future
–
And because he who controls history writes the past I feel like some compassion
isn’t too much to ask for before the man sworn into office can’t be stopped –
especially when he’s in Russians pockets and it’s already cost us more than just coffins
– so I find it ironic that the logic to make America great again comes from fake men
who justify misogyny with mistaking dignity for masculinity; say women are just things
to be grabbed or had; that they don’t have to ask but do have the audacity to ask
you to cast your vote for the creditors, sexual predators; but tell you to shoot
the messengers that says we can be better
–
That’s why i think the red, white, and blue are not absolutes – they’ve come to represent
a boot to the face of humanity; a flag for vanity that’s been a canopy for people living
under a fantasy that they can be anything – but only if they listen to the system and
accept that success comes on a few conditions: that capitalism isn’t a symptom but a wisdom,
that terrorism is an acceptable mechanism to justify life through the prism of racism, and that
prison is a business as big as being forgiven
–
And you’ll have excuse me when i don’t stand or put a hand to my heart because i want no part
of a country that accepts police brutality as a normality and casually writes off deaths as
collateral casualties that are formalities to keep society safe – but only keeps people
in their place, afraid, and is just another way they try to break communities to limit opportunity –
it’s a eulogy written in gunshots out of earshot from the “fake news”
–
So It only makes sense to protest the pursuit of happiness when I can only see it as the ravenous and passionless madness; I’ve had it with feeling like everyday’s a nightmare
when I know this country’s leaders worst fear is their people aware with their fists up pacing,
saying, “Make no mistake: we’re not gonna take it and we’re gonna make our stand – hand in hand – whether standing, sitting or on one knee, we demand to know if “my nation tis of
thee” is about a collective we or just white men writing about who they pretended to be”
–

 

TM Colin Corpe 2018.