From Pandemic to Protest

Black Lives are lost and we march, counting the cost, amidst a pandemic

DuBois calculated the cost of liberty and the receipts from lost Black lives confirm

Repression, suppression, oppression still cost more

Images of grief disrupts our peace

That passes all understanding

And we still cannot comprehend, thus, we ask, why?

Why does anyone have to die?

But the question morphs into why does anyone have to die like this?

Alone

A knee to the neck

Intubated

Socially Distanced

Shot in cold blood

Without answers and without regrets

Cardiac Arrested

Asphyxiated

No charges

No convictions

From drive-by testing to random racially profiled traffic stops

No mask

Uncovered mouths, covered eyes

Bird watching for 5 in Central Park can lead to death

Death ‘tis the great equalizer as told by Duggard

no matter how good or bad your life

how wealthy or poor your life

how old or young your life

Your Life?

Death will come

You’ve checked all the boxes to be counted

Socioeconomic status, Race, Zip code

These may extend your life but death still comes

America, the land of retaliation, cancel culture and the land of hiding in plain sight

Still no vaccination in sight

We continue to fight

We fight for Founding Father’s Freedom

We fight for equity in health that has nothing and everything to do with wealth

We fight for lives that continue to breathe, for lives that lost the ability to breathe, for lives that cried,

“I can’t breathe”

We fight

or else

the Protest becomes the Pandemic.