By Michael H. Brownstein
Because America is not fair,
Because racism needs to stop,
Because ignorance has to end,
Because the police need to know their job,
Because we no longer can put up with bullies with guns.
Because America is not color blind.
Because black America is not at war with white America,
Because too much has been stolen from black America.
Because of Mike Brown, Eric Garner,
John Crawford, Ezell Ford, Dante Parker,
Andrew Scott Gaynier, Dillon Taylor,
Omar Abrego, Diana Showman, Michelle Cusseaux,
Joshua Paul, Maria Godinez, Joseph Jennings,
Tamir Rice, Trayvon Benjamin Martin –
Because they were black, they were murdered.
Because of the dead due to racism –
We need to make reparations
Editor’s Note: Mr. Brownstein has taught the subjects of the following two Southern Poverty Law Center articles:
* “The Forgotten”
* “Civil Rights Martyrs”
His text was the book Free at Last: A History of the Civil Rights Movement and Those who Died in the Struggle, Southern Poverty Law Center, Sara Bullard, Editor, 1989 (Educational Resources Information Center), 1994 (Oxford University Press).
| Copyright © 2020 by Michael H. Brownstein Michael H. Brownstein’s volumes of poetry, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else and How Do We Create Love?, were published by Cholla Needles Press in 2018 & 2019, respectively. |
I am shrouded by the sad sense that the only reparations “we” will likely make are poems like yours and other acts of truth-telling by conscientious, justice-seeking individuals like you. Thank you for speaking, for giving me (and I hope others) this opportunity to second you and say hear! hear! you speak for me too.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your kind words.
ReplyDeleteYours is an eloquent, detailed indictment of the Land of the Free.
ReplyDeleteI offer a humanist’s prayer for a wide, compassionate response to your call for reparations, Michael. May these poems resonate and be picked up and quoted far and wide.
ReplyDeleteAnd I know from a pre-peak at your poem for Women’s History Month (coming on March 1) that you have an oeuvre of such poems calling us to consciousness (and conscientiousness). Do I see a future book collection in its formation?
Morris,
ReplyDeleteStrangely enough, I've been offered a book publication. I just don't know if I want to accept the offer.
Thanks, Bob, for your kind words.
“Been offered”...interesting! And you don’t even know whether you want to accept the offer!
DeleteSometimes we need to be reminded that there is more to life than going to work and having fun after that and not many people dare do it. Thank you for being one of them!
ReplyDeleteAnd thank you, Michael, not only for being one of the people who dare to remind us, as Valeria says, “that there is more to life than going to work and having fun after that,” but also for the way you commit your heart and soul and poetic skill to the task.
ReplyDelete