#race poems on Hello Poetry

Grace Jordan Mar 2015

Paint

My mother questions, “Why aren’t we equal?”
As she paints my walls with white
She wonders why my colorful friends don’t get as lucky as me
But she also wonders about the financial aid the government says we don’t need
I bang on her white walls and insist we’re well off
But she still asks why
And I can’t say “you! It’s because of people like you that my friends need a dollar or two”
Because of the way she plays hypocrite
Condemning welfare and the impoverished while asking why she doesn’t get any
Confirming the stereotype that most people aren’t innately racist
It’s just their own thoughtlessness that causes the disconnect
And it’s not just my mother, it’s all my people, me too
My friend once asked, “Why is Kierra so into social justice?”
Maybe because the history of our ancestors was carried on the backs of her people
Maybe because even today my people say we’re so good, so equal, so righteous
When we still look at a black man and assume the white is better
We don’t mean it but my assumptive mind insists that Kierra always needs a hand
When what is really needed is a strict hand to the side of my head
Jostle that rude assumption out of my head
She is her own person, not a broken house left on stilts
And assuming she is broken is worse than anything I can think of
So it’s a double edged sword because races need to work together to fix this atrocity
But we must also give each their freedom to grow and equalize equally
I will never understand the plight of one a different race
But I understand plight, from my gender and my mental state
My mother always told me treat everyone fairly
She always said to treat everyone right
But here she keeps on going
Painting my walls with white

#paint #mother #race #equality #colors #problem #hypocrite #assumptions #generations

Donald Charles Mark Keys Mar 2015

I am more than black

For those who say “I’m not black” you’re right.
For calling myself black limits me.
It limits my destiny to that of a slave;
To a fate of being judged by my skin,
Trapped by every ***** stereotype

To call myself black is to deny the rest of me.
It denies the Cherokee that flows through my veins.
It denies the Irish proud and strong.
It denies the other nations that have made me.
It denies my ancestry.

So for those who say I am not black you’re right.
For what is black?
Is it the descendants of slaves?
Tired and broken. Or is it those of African descent
Or is it more modern
Is it the mother who raises children alone?
Is it the father who is never home?
Is it the children who know not where they belong?
Is it those who grow up in the projects losing hope?

If this is what black is I reject it!
I am more than black.
I am more than the slave in chain.
I am more than the Cherokee proud and free.
I am more than Irish strong and brave.
For to accept any of these is to limit me to its destiny.

I am a human made by God
Made in his image and likeness.
African, Irish and Cherokee it is what helped make me,
But they do not bind me to their destinies.
So those who say I am not black you are right;
I am more than black. I am a child of the king.
And he has written my true destiny.

One of my oldest poems that I feel still rings true

#god #faith #black #race #identity #diversity

Dr Zik Mar 2015

TON, TICK, TICK, TON, TICK

Ton, tick, tick, ton, tick
Ton, tick, tick, ton, tick
Have a bath in time
Sing a song in rhyme

Ton, tick, tick, ton, tick
Ton, tick, tick, ton, tick
Don't act like a fool
Follow the good rule

Ton, tick, tick, ton, tick
Ton, tick, tick, ton, tick
Greet! Greet! Every one
Everywhere it's fun!

Ton, tick, tick, ton, tick
Ton, tick, tick, ton, tick
You are healthy or sick!
do well earn a tick

Ton, tick, tick, ton, tick
Ton, tick, tick, ton, tick
With smiling face
Learn by heart, its base

Ton, tick, tick, ton, tick
Ton, tick, tick, ton, tick
If you right then face
be steady win race!

Ton, tick, tick, ton, tick
Ton, tick, tick, ton, tick

children's poem

#heart #rhyme #race #sick #smiling #win #learn #rule #excellent

Christopher K Bayliss Mar 2015

The Problem is Gone

The woes of life
we pass them on,
'cause if we can't see them
then the problem is gone.

We shudder when
we hear transgression
but we all watch on
and then take our confession.

Now that we're forgiven
we can carry on
cause if we can't see it
then the problem is gone.

The world we know
could be much better run,
removing the barrier,
deserting the gun.

Renounce all the greed
and announce it out loud.
That up until now
we cannot be proud.

Or we can stand still,
and not move on.
Cause if we pretend
then the problem is gone.

Could we stand together
and perhaps all refuse
to join in with hate
and reject racist views.

This is maybe the only
way that we can move on.
Cause if we all join together
then the problem is gone.

This poem is inspired by the stunning piece by RW Dennen
http://hellopoetry.com/poem/1107285/spirit-of-the-edmund-pettus-bridge/
Give it a read, it is worth reading.

#love #hatred #rejection #together #race #greed

Meg B Mar 2015

Epilogue

White.
Female.
Middle Class.
Heterosexual.
Agnostic.
Libertarian.

Yeah.
That's me.
That's that first layer,
thin as the paper you could
read it on.
Just a
Jane Doe,
a nameless, faceless
demographic.

But peeling back the layers,
ripping through page on page of a complicated novel,
digging
down
into
a
bottomless
hole
to
China,
unravelling
the intricate
web of
stereotypestruthsliesassumptionsprejudice
and
there you will find
me,
a colorless genderless asexual
spirit whose frame
is crafted and molded
not with how the world
chooses to see me and
who "they" deem me to be;

no.

A guy that didn't know me well
once told me that I
spoke more urban than he
expected,
and I couldn't help but wonder why
someone from an urban area
couldn't speak like they were
from a city,
like somehow what he saw in my
whitefemaleheterosexualmiddleclassagnosticlibertarian
prologue forbade me
from speaking in colloquials and
abbreviations.
Oh, I apologize,
I laughed later to my friend,
law students are supposed to speak
with an ostentatious vocabulary and
an heir of
(superfluous) arrogance.

I am rarely a prototype
of what it means to be
White,
of what it means to be
female;
middle-class* or not,
my parents insisted at age 8
that I begin to understand
the value of a dollar;
my sexuality indicates little
about my level of attraction
to the world around me;
agnostic is really just a term
I put because I'm still trying to
figure out whether I really
believe everything I was forced to
learn at Catholic school;
and isn't Libertarian just a fancy
word for I don't want to
choose liberal or conservative?

It's insulting to
ingest how much is
insinuated about
my depth in
the shallowest of pools.
My cheeks burn hot
with frustration as I
try to balance on a beam
cracking underneath the weight of
a world that is constantly begging me
to go back in the neatly
wrapped package from which
the world would prefer I
came.

I'm not someone
you can put in a *******
box and
label;
you can't contain my
shine behind
blackout blinds;
I will burst out of your bubble
and break your glass ceilings;
I will scream at the top of
my lungs in a soundproof room
until you HEAR me.

I'm not meant to be judged
by my cover,
and neither are you.

We are meant to be read.

#religion #gender #stereotypes #book #politics #race #class #sexuality #breakingstereotypes #glassceiling

Adam Miles Christopher Bell Feb 2015

Sports day race

He wipes the moisture from his brow
The colour of a tomato fills his face,
as soon as we heard "GO!" he was gone,
doesn't he know that slow and steady win the race?

I don't run, I just walk slowly
I see my mother in the crowd, telling me to hurry.
Hasn't she realized that I am the Tortoise
and he is the hare.

I know I am right,
it said so in a book
we are racing around a circle
I see him and give a smug look.

For I am clever,
and he is nearing the finish line now.
haha how foolish!
He should've walked like I am,
now he'll have to rest his head in shame,
and just allow me to win this.

For he is the Hare,
but I am the tortoise.
And even the famous book says
"Slow and steady wins the race".

#book #run #race #school #children #quote #sports #pov

Adam Miles Christopher Bell Feb 2015

WE

WE are the predators,
WE rip OUR prey to shreds.
WE are on Land,
WE are in Space,
WE are in the Sea.

WE are everywhere,
yet WE are nothing.
WE are small,
WE are weak,
WE are fearful.

WE know compassion,
yet WE do not show it.
WE are kind,
WE are polite,
but WE are cruel.

WE are disloyal to OUR own gift,
WE love to hate and hate to love.
WE are relentless.
WE are greedy.
WE are Human.

Not the whole human race are bad. But the amount of destruction we have done to our own planet and it's life upsets me. Some of us care, but most do not, and this is disheartening.

#weak #earth #human #race #small #destruction #fierce

Kelsie Cameron Feb 2015

Power

I am not a true minority.
I am white woman.
I believe in feminism because that is what I experience.
But what about what I don't experience?
It pains me to have a power and to not know what to do with it.
Race is still an issue.
I hear these words all the time, but do I really hear them?
There are people out there who want to be married and they can't. I sit on my social media and say what should be said.
Sometimes.
Is that enough?
I have the power.
So why am I wasting it?

#power #race #feminism #lgbt #ethnicity

nothing's Amiss Feb 2015

*Civil Fear*

Enemy of the afraid
Terror of the tame
The privileged have you made
Into killers by name
If dying is your game

Too suspicious, skin too dark
your foreign tongue
Has made its mark

Bomb terror, bomb terror
Empathy to maim
Get your guns, weapon bearer
If dying is your game

Weighing lives against each other
Civil fear, where is your mother

If misused power lent you fame
then dying is your game

The terror is on your side of the gun, fools. Fear is your killer voice. We shall overcome, love transcends.

#killing #race #terror #police #injustice #news #prejudice #theman #oppresion #privilage