BRANDEN LEWIS

WARNING!! If anybody in the room is easily offended, get out.

I’ve actually been telling myself not to write a race poem. But only because there are already so many… So many that everybody in the room could’ve picked up their pens and wrote it me. So pick up your pens and write it with me but be warned, this poem is going to take a turn. You could’ve left or you could’ve stayed to write it with me…Turn? Left? Write it with me?

I’ve been thinking, and trying to figure out what I could say that hasn’t been said before in order to take you to a place that you haven’t been lead before. Because somewhere in between “I have a dream.” And “Yes we can.” We seem to have forgotten how to lead.

Part of the problem is, some of us are so brainwashed that we don’t even know what the problem is. Part of the problem is, some of us are still killing each other over the colors of our shirts as if that’s better than them killing us because of the color of our skin.

Why must we stand against each other? When did we go from fighting our oppressor to doing the oppressors work for them? You know the difference between when you and your favorite rapper buy new Jordans? Your favorite rapper didn’t spend their entire paycheck on those Jordan’s. You on the other hand look good in them when you’re walking to the bus stop to get on a bus that you had to scrap up barely enough change to ride in the first place. Just because you have the money does not mean you can afford it. Unless your favorite rapper is riding the bus too because that changes everything.

I’ve been telling myself not to write a race poem, but let’s look at the cons and pros. Con: we the oppressed have been conned out of so many pros that we don’t have many pros to go. Believing everything on their news shows. So they judge before they completely know.

Newsflash people of European descent, not all people of color are thugs, thieves, and, gangbanging criminals. Uhhhh what’s the word for someone who see’s something that belongs to someone else, figures “Ahh I need this more than you” and takes it? Ohhh… A thief! Remind me how you got this country again?

We are not thieves and scum, we are kings and queens.

Black men, stop acting like you’re Mr. Right when you’re chilling in the club. Black women, stop acting like you’re about to find Mr. Right just chilling in the club.

Now why do educated black people act like they’re better than uneducated black people? Jesse Jackson once said, “Never look down on someone unless you’re helping them up”. How many people have you looked down on with no intention of helping them up? We are supposed to be brothers and sisters, descendants of the motherland. Keeper of my brother and my brothers people. I hear a lot of you say, “I’m my brother’s keeper” but you don’t mean it.

Is anyone offended yet?