Day 1226, Black Death 

 

Whenever you commit a crime, then you will be arrested,

Unless your victim has dark skin; that’s when the law is tested.

Most perpetrators need attorneys and they’re put on trial.

And sometimes they’re acquitted through a smart attorney’s guile.

 

Especially when you’re white and when your victim’s somewhat darker,

But when the roles have been reversed, the contrast can’t be starker.

Black suspects sometimes don’t survive encounters with policing.

The cops kill folks with darker skin and that is not decreasing.

 

Black folks are killed by whites and cops for jogging, forging, sleeping.

To drive while black may be a crime that leaves your mother weeping.

The South is worse but not the only place we see such killing.

For racists practice everywhere; their prevalence is chilling.

 

When we are white, if we’re assaulted, we know cops won’t bust us.

We trust the cops; we have no fear of violent injustice.

But here’s a lesson we all learn while traveling on life’s journey.

If you’re a victim and you’re black, then you need an attorney.

 

A cop who killed a black man has been finally charged with murder.

It took a video, and riots; what could be absurder?

Does what we see with cell phones now, reflect years of injustice?

And, if we’re white, do we see why black people do not trust us?

 

Both COVID 19 and racism are an epidemic.

Racism is four hundred years old and has stayed systemic.

Eventually we’ll deal with COVID by a vaccination.

But then we’ll still have racists spreading hatred in our nation.