By Cedric McClester

How many black men
Have to die?
At the hands of cops
Who are quick to deny
That their blackness
Was the reason why
Their families now morn
And their friends now cry

How come it’s always
Deadly force?
Why don’t they choose
Another course?
But they don’t
Then lack remorse
For the dastardly actions
That they endorse

It’s always black men
Who in taking flight
Wind up dead
In the dark of night
And the cops should know
That it ain’t right
But they do it anyway
And they aren’t contrite

After Attorney Ben Crump
Has been reached
How many funerals
Must Reverend Sharpton preach?
For aggrieved families
Who are in the breach
Before the cop’s behavior
Has been impeached







Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2021. All rights reserved.

By: Cedric McClester

Being black is
Sometimes being loathed and hated
Or beaten back
And usually underestimated
And though it’s wack
It’s also antiquated
And it’s a fact
We’re often tired and frustrated

Being black is
A pre-existing condition
As a matter of fact
It hurts to make this admission
And those without tact
Might say we lack ambition
But let’s look back
Who put us in this position?

Being black is
Being spotted in a crowd
And it’s a fact
Sometimes we are too loud
We’re attacked
For being well endowed
The deck is stacked
Yet we refuse to be cowed

Being black is
Having grace and style
And the knack
For surviving hard times with a smile
And bouncing back
With a Cadillac
To completes our high profile
We use more gas for the mile














Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2021.  All rights reserved.

By: Cedric McClester

The jurors said guilty
On all three counts
And history was made
Cos the cop didn’t bounce
See sometimes we get
Justice by the ounce
But most times we don’t
When the verdict’s pronounced

He must have assumed
That he’d get away
With the ****** he committed
On that fateful day
But thank God he didn’t
And will have to pay
For that public lynching
On open display

All he showed Mr. Floyd
Was gross disrespect
When he kept his knee
On his fragile neck
With the crowd urging him
To let George off the deck
He ignored one and all
While flexing his pecs

Now his accomplices
Face aiding and abetting
For not doing nothing
Though it was upsetting
Even a blind man could see
Where it was heading
To an outcome that they
All should have been dreading


Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2021. All rights reserved

By: Cedric McClester

For those of you asking
“What’s the fuss?”
George Floyd could have been
Anyone of us
Which explains why the bystanders
Pleaded and cussed
But the officer refused
To acknowledge and adjust

For those who are thinking
He was a big man
You’d be correct
But what I don’t understand
Is once the situation
Was well in hand
Why did he choose
To torture that man?

For those who are looking
For a convenient excuse
To look the other way
And ignore the abuse
That Mr. Floyd was
Subjected to
If justice is to prevail
That’s impossible to do

For those of you who
Just can’t relate
To how George Floyd
Met his untimely fate
And would be inclined
To give the cop
The benefit of the doubt
It’s time for you to simply tap out


Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2021.  All rights reserved.

By: Cedric McClester

Are you woke
Or still asleep?
Or is the question
Much too deep?
Cos I don’t hear
A single peep
When you’re being
Led like sheep

Are you woke?
Know what I mean?
From your mouth
The word’s obscene
Though you think
It’s peachy keen
But have you been
Where I’ve been

Are you woke?
I thought I’d ask
You wear the word
Like a face mask
Is sincerity
Too hard a task?
Or do you need
To be placed on blast

Are you woke?
Is the question
Somewhere in this
There’s a lesson
Or perhaps
An unfound blessing
It’s the former
That I’m addressing

Cedric McClester, Copyright (c) 2021.  All rights reserved.

They say Floyd might have been
In an ****** induced haze
Introduced to the jury
To see how it plays
But that’s a common affliction
Now-a-days
So one has to wonder
Why was it raised?

They say that Floyd was anything
But a child of God
As a way of coming down on him
Extra hard
Cos “The evil that men do
Lives after them,” said the Bard
“But the good’s interred within their bones
Forever they’ll be scarred

No matter what he was
Here’s a salient fact
That was no way for Officer Chauvin
To react
I have to think it was all because
Floyd was black
One knee remained on his neck
The other on his back

Is it hoping for too much
For justice to prevail?
By any sense of the word
Chauvin belongs in jail
But we will have to see
If once again justice will fail
Or if it will triumph
Like a holy grail

Cedric McClester, Copyright (c) 2021. All rights reserved.

Nine minutes and
Twenty-nine seconds
Knee on his neck
As death beckons
Justice shall prevail
One hopefully reckons
Unsupported by history
Or learned life lessons

And those gathered
As you might suspect
Begged him to take
His knee off of his neck
But his response was
Hey what the heck?
All he had for his victim
Was contempt and disrespect

Some might say
That we’re paranoid
To them I respond
In the name of George Floyd
Cos black lives matter
To a precious few
And y’all are aware
Of how you do

Grandpa cried while
On the stand
Recounting what he witnessed
Done to that man
The cop might as well have been
The Ku Klux ****
Which every black man in America
Will understand