Solidifying dreams yet imagined,
cement bonding wire of a chicken's house, plastic, direction, hope.
Trash transformed into treasure,
as hearts interlace.
You are not merely what someone else thinks you should be.
You are pure potential,
leading Guatemala from the cruelty of civil war,
through the window of education and truth,
toward promise and prosperity.
-Tina Lehman
Awakening within the well of my white privilege,
Nina Simone’s soul sings through my being.
Strange Fruit, blood on the leaves, blood on the roots.
Hangings in the name of hatred and ignorance,
no longer confined to the South.
A new form of lynching has festered its way into America.
Alton Sterling….Philando Castile,
both innocent black men shot dead by madmen in blue.
A child bears witness to the horror of a life precious to her
taken by a madman.
“I’m just getting my mommy’s purse,” she says.
A child’s attempt to make sense of madness becoming “normal.”
Another generation being groomed.
Don’t want to see a loved one murdered by the police?
Only white children need apply.
Can we remember all of the black men murdered
by police
or has their memory faded within the ricochet of distraction?
Fearful of wearing a hoodie,
fearful of selling CD’s,
Fearful of not pulling your license from your wallet at the precise pace;
fearful of being alive one minute and dead the next.
The black mother within my own humanity,
can only seek comfort within memories of her loved one,
residing safely in her womb.
The madman in blue has his own chains of fear.
Fearful of someone who doesn’t look like him,
Becoming more successful than he,
fearful of that someone taking his possessions,
including “his woman.”
Enslaved Africans built our nation’s capital.
From kings and queens to chattel slavery…
just how angry are they?
The madman in blue is fearful of himself.
He is unable to govern himself
and is reduced to control others.
Dallas…
violence metastasizing from violent
and unethical beginnings.
Empathy…
for the courageous men in blue
surviving within a broken
and corrupt brotherhood.
Compassion…
for the family members attending
funerals with shattered hearts.
Zero Tolerance…
for those who mock “to protect and to serve”
as a laughable slogan.
Defiance…
I will not “Back the Blue” broken and corrupt by the
very silence of the brotherhood.
I will not back cowardice leadership.
They know where the tumors of racism are and do nothing.|I will not fall to distraction via the bait and switch.
Our collective chains of fear,
Are you too afraid to wonder outside, to live,
to love, to understand?
Fear on dear people!
Mass fear,
pumping through millions of paralyzing screens in the United States of Anxiety.
Media consolidation collectively designing sound bites
as our thoughts.
Hear the dog whistle,
feel the corresponding emotion.
Accept or reject.
Reject the lull of slumber,
sleep, sleep, sleep.
Accept awareness.
Peaceful warriors are awake, and
I am not the only one.
- Tina Lehman