Originally posted in January of 2019
They found him swaying in the wind with his toes barely touching the ground. His face bloated from the hemp cutting into his neck. The smell of urine is strong where it stains the ground beneath him. With the thirteen loops, the noose was =(equal to) justice for one group and a symbol of fear and hate for another.
“Coloreds to the back.” These signs hung from many eateries/diners explaining to the “others” that you aren’t = (equal to) us or fit to eat with us. Feeding the “colored” out back, off cardboard, paper plates, napkins, etc., anything that the “good” folk wouldn’t use afterwards, is =(equal to) the noose that still sways in the wind, a reminder of evil ideologies.
Welfare was developed with an overt message that as a country we’d fight poverty. Covertly creating a people who would become dependent and needy for its necessities. This is =(equal to) the “coloreds to the back” signs, covertly teaching a people not to be independent or self-reliant. Conditioning the colored to remain slaves to the lenders.
Crack cocaine was purposely flooded into urban areas as a means to get a people to self-ingest a poison that killed with euphoric feelings, a poison that numbed the pains and, for a while, altered realities. Stirring chaos with addiction and a lack of means to finance the addiction, this is =(equal to) conditioned crime. It is = (equal to) the welfare. Just another way for a people to become dependent, another link in the chains that the slaves still wear in shame.
That A-K or 9-mm that riddled that body full of holes is just another tool used in the cycle that we have found ourselves in. Instead of the “white oppressors”, we are now lynching our own, we have become oppressors of self. A stray bullet killed an eight- year-old girl, only the family cares for all the victims. Just another three niggers dead, this is =(equal to) collateral damage, they can afford the loss of a couple of farm hands. This violence and chaos is =(equal to) the cocaine that a culture ingested after accepting the food stamps, because our circumstances wouldn’t afford us = (equal) opportunity at that time. Now we are imprisoning ourselves seeking to be like our ancestors. Isn’t slavery =(equal to) incarceration? Aren’t we dependent on the state, with few if any voting rights, and an identification number that has monetary value to it? Are we not put into the fields to work, then released to impregnate our women, then abandoning them to rear the next generation of slaves for the noose (grave by violence) or the fields (penitentiary)? These conditions are =(equal to) genocide, the question is, are we > (greater than) or < (less than) our circumstances. I personally know that we are capable of changing these circumstances and proving that we are =(equal to) the task.
I am R.E.A.D.Y. are you?
