Let it burn
like they let us
make us die

From my great-great-great-great-grandmothers and fathers
in the plantations
to my father in the Rodney King riots
not long ago –
What has changed, I ask you?

Slavery has been abolished —
But the mindset —
This is the apartheid nation

Bring it down and burn it,
hang it by the rope
as they did and do with us,
still shooting rounds and rounds

The system of oppression
racism
injustice

There is only so much that can be taken
day by day by day by year by year by year by decade by decade by decade

And the grief erupts
And the grief erupts and turns into anger into rage
fueled by pain
about
oppression
racism
injustice

Where do we stand, where do we march?
refusing opportunistic lawlessness, hate and crime
but breaking what was built on the back of the slaves –us

Until the closed eyes see
and the deaf ears hear
the fear and the boiling deep inside
the strength and the beauty and the hope
that has not been quelched despite

oppression
racism
injustice

One Nation under God
indivisible,with Liberty and Justicefor All

–We are still waiting, 155 years later.