Big White Lies

Kari is mad as hell! Violence against BIPOC has survived too long. Justice is a human right.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - The Other America, 1967

Where once lived the American dream

Now lays the American lie.

Freedom and liberty for all?

Many Americans insist this exists,

But, they turn from the truth.

Liberty is given to the white

While BIPOC are just given the Li.

Justice is not equal,

The only blind eye she turns is for the rich.

The scales are tipped in white favor.

I know a little of the injustice,

(I am a woman, held back and held down.)

But, not the magnitude.

I taught my kids that the police

Is who you go to for help.

Never imagining the need

To teach extra manners

To avoid death through confrontation.

It is past time for talks

Used by old white men

to make themselves seem reasonable

The winter of delay must end.

Action is required and

we know it can be done.

But still old white men

Like Mitch McConnell

Hold us down.

We weary of asking.

The same thing was asked in the 1990s

When Rodney King was murdered.

In the 2000s many were murdered.

Some died using the same last words.

"I can't breathe."

We must see what is true,

No longer denying.

White people wake up!

We must stand united

with our human family.

Knowing we are all together

Not accepting the lie

All will magically be better.

We forget our own role.

Never trying to fix.

Always shoving band-aids on

And calling it done.

Old white men, trying

To gloss over the facts.

Giving excuses

and starting studies.

"It was unavoidable."

Murder!? Unavoidable!??

The old white men do not care.

We are just "human capital stock"

Our rulers are oblivious to

The normal American suffering.

How can they rule us without

Knowing the difficulties of life.

All the rich know is that

Homeless people are lazy

And unmotivated.

Mexicans are rapists and thieves.

Black people do not have

Enough brains to think logically.

They are only good for sports and war.

But these are American lies.

Big white lies that the rich

Tell their children

To perpetuate their rule.

Ohio by Neil Young

© 2020 Kari Poulsen