How quaintly they cry
About history erased
When their monuments
To hatred are removed
This is our heritage
Their new battle cry
Clinging to the banner
Holding power by fear
Politicians rally
Fear of losing the base
When we control their fear
We control their lives
No more American dream
Just a fascist nightmare
Throngs refusing to wake
Sleepwalking through life
Sides must be chosen
The language must attest
We group them categorically
In a tribe of ‘thugs’ or ‘racists’
We ease our conscience
We label them ‘terrorists’
We proudly proclaim our title
We are just ‘nationalists’
We are protecting our rights
We have become our possessions
We have sold our souls
For a bastardized star and stripe
Giving our history a whitewash
Giving our religion a new direction
Our protectors become our keepers
As we blindly follow the piper
We have abandoned
Our foundational ideology
“We, the people”
Have narrowed the scope
We ignore our crimes
And criminalize resistance
We forcefully silence the oppressed
With bullets and gas grenades
We have returned our state
And became a nation at war
Protecting the new god we serve
The cruel taskmaster ‘greed’
Property over people
Wealth over poverty
We never freed the slaves
We just became slaves ourselves
Like the bird in a cage
We have freedom
As long as we stay away
From the gilded bars
We take our comfort
In this system we serve
Like a frog in a pot
But the water is soon to boil
America was birthed
In a revolt against oppression
Our masters were afraid
Our taste of freedom
Was out of control
Now
Not even a quarter of a millennium
We have become our oppressors
Our noble experiment is ignoble
We pad our resume with war crimes
We moved from a land of opportunity
To a land filled with opportunists
Seeking to build our dreams
On the broken backs of others
We worship the tokens
While trampling the ideals
We revere the rich
And marginalize the poor
We scream and stream unintelligible lies
To cover the cries of our victims
We vomit out the vitriol of our lives
Thinking our fear sounds like strength
Time will reveal us, eventually
As the jesters and fools we are become
Parading our ignorance loudly
Spoon fed fear by our masters
It is time we shake off the shackles
For, though we have adorned them
And grown comfortable wearing them
They are still the shackles of slavery
We have become the ‘house nigger’
As we work the new plantations of the rich
As we fill their coffers with gleaming gold
And beg for crumbs they cast aside
It is time
To cast off the chains of identity labels
To break down dividing wall mortared with fear
To become ‘We’ instead of ‘them’ and ‘they’
It is time to understand
The takers take from us all
The oppressors crush us all
‘We have met the enemy and they are us’
The dream has not been taken
It was never really offered
Well, not unilaterally
The American Dream has a caveat
If we are to rise from this mire
We will never be able
If we keep tearing others down
We will only rise, together
Cast off your shackle
Cast aside your label
Lift others so they may lift you
Become again your brother’s keeper
This was the plan
“We, the people”
To be the keepers
Not of wealth and riches
Not of power and dominion
But, to be the keepers
Keepers of humanity
Keepers of ideals
Keepers of justice
Keepers of every brother
Keepers
© Ron Simpson Jr
August 29, 2020
