Originally posted in December of 2018
Do you think any less of what I say because I speak from behind bars? I’ve learned to wade through the river of the past atrocities done to my people. I now reek of the residual effects of slavery, lynching, Jim Crowism, and Affirmative Action. There have been nothing but casualties from the wars on poverty, drugs, and gangs. I have willingly walked through the pipeline from school to the penitentiary. I have tasted the by-products of the oppressors, and find the poisons both sweet and addictive on my tongue.
Are my words < (less than) true due to my past crimes? Are the bodies we bury or the faces locked behind bars < (less than) real because they do not belong to your ilk? Is the worth of black people < (less than) any other race of people? Is the suffering < (less than) real because as a nation we are able to deflect the complaints voiced by the masses? Where is our humanity, where is the love, the freedom, the liberation? Are we < (less than) what God created us to be? Are we a minority, not numerically but mentally? If we are > (more than) our circumstances, then when will we as a people, a nation, start behaving as such? I’m just wondering–are we < (less than) our circumstances?
