Culture restored

Looking you in the face, it’s ignorant

They say white privilege isn’t real

any person of color will tell you it is

The preponderance that you hold

The fact that you repudiate it

That you refuse to accept it

Do you even care

Do you even know

Do you not remember redlining

Do you not remember slavery

do you not remember that we weren’t even free until 1865

the people of this generation mimicking black culture are killing me

understand this isn’t something we chose to see

why do you think that we have ghettos

it is not because we fall short

or black minds don’t work

white people would make us work all night

and profit off the field, this wasn’t right

the reason we are broken down

is because we lost a culture, that will never again be found

black culture has turned into gangs and chitterlings

is this what the slaves even wanted for thee

I’m ashamed of my hair

I cover my pigment

the slaves are free, but my culture isn’t

It is crazy to think

The destruction we see

Prejudice

Discrimination

There is no peace

To restore the problem, we need to know the history

But how can we learn when 75% of black men in California can’t read

We weren’t taught, we were misled

There are still people today

who know of people who owned slaves

And still, we cover the graves

Because we are too afraid to accept defeat

We are too scared to show sympathy

We haven’t quite learned the meaning of peace

Peace isn’t silence

Peace is freedom from disturbance

Ask yourself, is that really what you see

Because I see the pain

I see suffering

I see truculence in the eyes of my brothers

Because 1 in every 1000 black men is expected to be killed by police

I see black Americans making up 68% of homicide rates

The pain and inequality are obstreperous

So I ask you again, do you really see peace

Because if this is peace

Then our nation is going to continue to collapse

Because the objective truth is insignificant

And I believe our nation still has a purpose

Despite that it’s imperfect

I’ll admit these words are fatuous

But the fact is

I’m here to restore the destruction

I’m here to fight injustice

I’m here to eradicate inequality in a system that was built to preclude me

I open my eyes to the death I see

caused by so many who look like me

I acknowledge the problem

I say no more

Black culture needs to change

I refuse to go out this way

In 20 years when I look at the tv

I want to see someone who looks like me

Doing something other than rapping about drugs and disrespect

Doing some other than putting a ball in a net

I want to see a black woman wearing her hair proud as president

I want to see a black man in blue

Being honored for what he did for black youth

I say let us restore our culture

I say we shall not continue to perish

But we shall stand united.

As quoted in, the declaration of independence

“They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity.

We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.”

The culture is gone.

-Kamaria johnson