After Brown vs.

When I think of everything that my mother endured
To desegregate a public restroom
Or the horrors heaped on my fathers
For attempting to level an everybody field;
When I think of what my uncles bore
Just to sit in an equal school desk
And all the pain my aunts withstood
To gain the respect of a titled name;
When I think of the fact that
Someone spit on nine from Arkansas
and offered death to a little Bridges
When I think of the day to day violations and violence
That people still living are asked to bury deep inside them
--suck it up—and walk beside their tormentor,
Abuser, murderer—attempted but failed;
When I think of the shameful past that people
Black like me
Traveled through with the courage to
Live and eat and breathe next to their nemesis.
I can’t help but imagine
What it must be like for them.
What must it be like to know the very
Child you shoved in English class
In hate of their blackness
Sits across from you in a boardroom
Reminding you of that senseless violence,
The student you 2, 4, 6, 8,
And threatened to hang in hate
Is now the neighbor who watches out for your house
Or the teacher who stands before your child
Reminding you of how much you supported
Segregation then, segregation now, segregation forever..
What must it be like to ask God to forgive you
Because you got caught up in the moment
And watched that nigger hang.
You got swept up in the crowd
And almost hung your own damn nigger
A secret that must be cancerous, deadly waiting, inside you.
What must it be like to see the world
A damn, a-changing
Changes that made you willing to kill
To keep from happening.
Must be why you like to say you were just a child
You were hating like the sign of the times.
Well, your victims were children too
And you can’t take back the damage
You gifted to them.
What must it be like to be you
To live knowing what you did
To bury your guilt knowing that you
Never had to apologize or right wrongs
Cause the laws changed with the expectation
That your victim would just get over it,
Say thank you and move on.
Whew! Thank God you caught a break, that is
If you can look in the mirror
And not remember—even if no one else saw you--
That you stood right there in the crowd
And raised your voice to offer death by
Beating, lynching, shooting, burning, beating
Cause any nigger who asked to be treated equally
Didn’t deserve to live.
What must it be like to be you
Filled with guilt and shame,
Knowing that one day you will pay
Societal times or not, child or not
You will pay a price for the lives you stole,
The hearts you broke, the spirits you crushed.
My God
What must it be like to be you
To know that everything you were willing to do
To stop progress
Will be the very things on which you will be
Judged and sentenced.
And the only comfort left for you is the hope
No prayer
That your judgment comes from a God
Whose ability to show mercy
Far out-measures the mercy you failed to show.