I do not feel the whip in my hand
Or the rub of rope
I never even imagined either,
Yet they tell me I must pay
For crimes I didn’t commit
On people I never met
Because those people
Have the same color skin as me,
They like me ache to make
Our own decisions,
Make our own mistakes
Good or bad; rich or poor,
Though most who died in that fight
Never owned a whip
Let alone a black back to use it on,
Fighting blue coats not to keep slavery
But to keep some arrogant know it all
From telling them how to live their lives
Telling them what is right and wrong
When they need to
Decide that for themselves,
Knowing that rich are the same
North or south, only the north rich
Learned to hide the whip better
And let other people swing the rope,
Or pay for some poor immigrant
To die in a war that was never meant
To free slaves but to make rich richer,
And now, all these years later
Some new know it all,
Deluded by some new rich guy
Tells us we have to pay the bill
Calling us racist for clinging
To those few shreds dignity
Carpet baggers didn’t get,
Pushing people into becoming racists
The way those know it alls
Pushed people into a war
Nobody wanted to wage,
Hating us then and now
For refusing to kowtow,
To feel shame,
To pine our lives away
For something we never did,
And most of our ancestors never did either,
Painting us into a corner
So that the only way to fight back
The only way to survive with dignity
Is to become what they say we are,
Which is probably what they wanted
All along.
