Born hate-free, I was taught, Caught up in a time when crimes Against millions of people was fine And the social genocide of bigotry Was excused for me and practiced hourly Then daily and yearly and nobody said no, Oh no, don’t go there! Where was decency When everybody could use names Like flames to torch total strangers?
The danger is visible now, almost risible But indivisible with no liberty or justice Just issuing slams and slurs like a knife, A way of life that helped nobody And anybody that protested, complained Were given their own names to suffer. No, they didn’t stutter. ****** lover. That’s what they called us if we shied, Chose the wrong side, the side of freedom,. Equality, morality, principles of Christianity. Seemed invisible concepts to the likes of me.
Taught hypocrisy, I dissembled easily Saying all men were equal when evil Was universal at a “whites only” fountain, The affronts to decency mounting, hurting, Atrocities compounding, surrounding Hanging, shooting, beating, killing In a society willing to hang and **** The Martin Luther Kings at will For being willing to not sit still And let the falsehood go on and on. And then he was gone, but The South Still pours honey from a mouth that claims To be the right, the good, the family party.