Friday, July 17, 2020

The Other America

Two Americas

By: Rodolfo Perez

 

Your America is cooking out with the music on,

Clear cerulean skies.

Children play in your cul du sac,

Men and women jog on the sidewalks,

Their hands raise and wave,

When they see the boys in blue drive past.

Your America is confidence,

In not only the boys sent to the amber sands,

Or the coal colored streets,

But in the men who send them.

Your America is justice,

In the judge, the jury, and executioner.

Dealing the punishments that fit the crime.

Your America is freedom, above everything else.

-

That is not my America.

My America is dark streets with broken night-lamps.

My America is cold,

Where flashing lights don’t bring relief but rather terror.

My America is lonely,

Where walking into a store gains stern stares from workers,

And makes men track you through the shop,

Like a wolf scouting its prey.

My America has no justice,

Murderers walk free,

And innocent men and women are put in chains to work.

Those who are killed are mocked.

Victims are turned into villains,

Oppressors turned heroes.

My America is perseverance to fight,

For justice,

For freedom,

For recognition,

For a voice.

Your America is perseverance to fight back.

To keep things the way they are.

-

Yet you still have the gall to tell me

We are one nation under god?

That we are indivisible?

With liberty and justice for all?