farsighted
my eyes are the color of
emmett till, medgar evers,
and 4 little black girls
who even with 20/20 vision
couldn't see the bomb coming.
my glasses are tinted with
the blood stained cotton from
mississippi, and the strange fruit
hanging from the carolina pines,
where the red, white, and blue
stands for blood, cotton, and bruises.
my prescription hasn't changed
in 400 years, even though
my eye chart reads L
A N D
O F T H E
F R
maybe i'll get another doctor.
maybe i'll get a new prescription.
or maybe...maybe i'll just
go blind.
I wrote that poem 12 years ago after channel surfing and finding a special commemorating the 10 year anniversary of the Rodney King riots. What an odd thing to commemorate, I thought, and I changed the channel. However, the images of Rodney King being beaten were stuck in my mind, so I wrote this poem. I hadn't really thought about the poem much...
until now.
Watching the protests, reading hate-filled comments about Eric Garner, Mike Brown, and just people in general, and then reading the #CrimingWhileWhite stories on Twitter made me think about the poem I wrote, and the fact that even though it was written 12 years ago, about an event that took place 22 years ago, that same poem could have been written 2 minutes ago.
Images from 50-60 years ago are flashing before my eyes. I keep blinking thinking they will go away, but they just keep clouding my vision. I'm trying to see the future clearly; heck, I'm trying to see the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015, but there's little light; it's getting darker and darker.
But, I can't go blind. Nope, no matter how blurry, dim, or dark things may seem, I can't and won't turn a blind eye to injustice, division, ignorance and apathy that is so pervasive. Nope, I'm gonna get a new extra strength prescription so I can see things clearly; then I'm gonna make sure my next eye chart reads
J
U S T I C E
F O R A L L
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