Day 1237, Are We Family? 

 

The demonstrators marching with their signs,

Police in riot” gear, in thin blue lines,

One more unarmed black man, lynched by police,

The protests swell and capture the headlines.

 

One more unarmed black man killed by police,

Knees on his neck and chest, ‘til breath would cease.

First breath, then heart stopped and life ebbed away.

Protesters cry, “No justice!” and, “No peace!”

 

We watched on TV as life ebbed away.

“I can’t breathe,” last words on his dying day.

We’re angry now; we’ve been outraged before.

But now will sense of outrage fade or stay?

 

We’re angry now and we have marched before.

A Civil Rights bill passed in ’64

And college football teams would integrate.

But, somehow, we’re reluctant to do more.

 

We’re comfortable that sports teams integrate.

In towns and cities, we still segregate.

Blacks in the neighborhood mean white folks flee.

Not just the South but every single state.

 

When blacks move in, a lot of whites will flee,

Whites’ sense of black folks, still not brotherly.

We’re angry that cops killed “another one.”

Still one of “them,” still not our family.

 

As long as victims are “another one,”

Not everybody’s father, brother, son,

As long as we’re divided up by race,

If we’re not family, this fight can’t be won.

 

What evolution teaches about race:

A fact that bigotry tries to erase,

All human beings are one family.

So, Cain kills Abel in each murder case.  (1)

 

(1)  Genesis 4:8. The first murder was fratricide.  The Bible and Darwin agree that every murder since is also fratricide.