to be Black in america

to be Black in america is to have the police ravage your body with bullets as you sleep in your own home

to be Black in america is to have an officer's knee on your neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds

to be Black in america is to be chased and gunned down as you go for a jog

to be Black in america is to disproportionately lose your life during child birth compared to your white counterparts

to be Black in america is to say "i can't breathe" 11 times while several civil servants hold you down

to be Black in america is to be killed in front of your wife and child during a traffic stop

to be Black in america is to be laughed at in your final moments on earth while you're having a medical emergency in police custody

to be Black in america is to be a child visiting your father and be killed by a man who doesn't believe you belong in the neighborhood

to be Black in america is to be hung from a tree and it be ruled a suicide without any attempt to investigate the incident

to be Black in america is to be killed in your own apartment because a police officer "thought you were an intruder in her apartment"

to be Black in america is to be an activist found hanged in a jail cell after being there for 3 days for a traffic stop and for it to be ruled a suicide

to be Black in america is to have your car donned with 50+ bullets the day before your wedding

to be Black in america is to be killed by cops at 12 years old for playing with a toy

to be Black in america is to have your childhood stripped from you and be unjustly villainized in the media as rapists for a crime you did not commit

to be Black in america is to be killed in a corner for stealing orange juice you had money in your hand to buy

to be Black in america is to be shot by the cops running away with your hands up

to be Black in america is to be a 14 year old child made to strip naked, be beaten, shot, have your eyes gouged out, and thrown into the tallahatchie river tied to a 75 lb cotton gin fan with barbed wire by grown men because a grown white woman lied about your brief insignificant interaction with one another

to be Black in america is to have your entire town raped, murdered, and burned down because of an everchanging story of what allegedly happened between one white woman and one Black man

to be Black in america is to be found with missing organs and for your death to be ruled a suicide

to be Black in america is to be shot while you're in your home playing a video game with your nephew

to be Black in america is to be sodomized with a broom stick and beaten by the nypd

to be Black in america is to be gunned down by "trained" officers who can't tell the difference between a phone/brush/ wallet and a gun

to be Black in america is to go into a police van alive and be carried out dead

to be Black in america is to be unarmed and be shot on a subway platform while being held down on new year's eve

to be Black in america is to held in rikers for 3 years, the majority of the time in solitary confinement, for allegedly stealing a bookbag and after being released due to the damage that prison did to you, at the age of 22 you die by suicide

to be Black in america is to be sleeping in your car in a fast food parking lot in one moment and in the next have an officer's bullets in your body

to be Black in america is to be a good swimmer on a boat with your white friends and your cause of death is quickly determined to be an accidental drowning even though your friends had varying stories

to be Black in america is to freeze to death in an industrial walk in freezer most experts say you were able to enter and close on your own

to be Black in america is to be found dead at an adult sleepover with the other guests being white and for it to hastily be ruled an accident

to be Black in america is to be a new homeowner and be berated and endangered by your neighbors and their friends for daring to live amongst them then being told by the police that nothing can be done until you and/or your child are actually harmed

to be Black in america is to be a 7 year old girl killed in a police raid of your home with tv cameras waiting outside to catch your father

to be Black in america is to be four children at church and not survive the bombing of your church where 80+ were injured and the last culprit of the terrorist attack to not be prosecuted until decades later

to be Black in america is to be executed at the age of 14 after a jury deliberated on your baseless trial for 10 minutes for a crime there was 0 evidence you committed, being so small you had to sit on books to reach the headpiece of the electric and it taking 70 years after your execution for you to be exonerated

to be Black in america is to writhe in your skin feeling tha pain of all the stories above and to know without a slither of doubt that there are countless more names we will never know, to know that brown paper bags together could flow for miles with past and future horror stories of inhumanity and injustice

to be Black in america is to fear for the day when it is your mother, father, brother, sister, niece, nephew, friend, or your own name is the hashtag

to be Black in america is to be told but "what about Black on Black crime" when you are literally crying out in pain for the lack of humanity being shown to your own people and to have to let your suffering burn a hole in your gut as you explain that when a community is systematically under funded, over policed, over populated, handed a sub par education, drugs funneled in, violence is inevitable

to be Black in america is to have it whipped into your psyche that this country will always count you as 3/5 a person

to be Black in america is to be the greatest stolen gift to this misappropriated land and to be hushed, belittled, and dismissed whenever we vocalize that slavery will always have a relentless grasp on society and everyone that dwells within

to be Black in america is so overwhelming and isolating that we are often blinded by our own sorrow and when we cultivate a moment of reprieve for ourselves we see the horrors being enacted on our brothers and sisters around the world

to be Black in america is to take over a month writing this fucking poem and as you get to the end of it, you remember the the Black bodies that have been experimented on, the Black soldiers who have been disregarded and murdered after valiantly serving this country, that sharecropping and the american prison system was just an extension of slavery, you remember names and innocent faces and you are fucking tire and depleted because you know all the stories of those brutalized souls deserve more than you have left

to be Black in america...