Many Indigenous and African Americans were deprived and denied generational wealth.
Yet they’re blamed for not doing well.
If land wasn’t stolen, opportunities suppressed, it’s more likely that they would have progressed.
Take away from and hold them down.
Toss condemnation and criticism as you watch them drown.
Blacks asked.
They marched and peacefully demonstrated.
Met with resistance and hatred.
Beaten, hosed, killed.
A dream, never truly fulfilled.
Injustice and discrimination endured.
As Rights were granted, but never secured.
Vulnerable, at risk of being removed.
If enough approve.
Who would think that day would come so soon?
As threats of reversal on progress loom.
A White man who shoots twenty one, having left the scene.
Has a better chance of being brought in peacefully.
Than a Black man allegedly passing a bad check.
Even after surrendering and subdued by a cop’s knee to his neck.
Meets with death.
Police report as a medical incident.
If it wasn’t recorded, the world wouldn’t have known different.
Stayed ignorant.
But even with all that’s known, true motivation and sustained efforts for change have not been shown.
Initial outrage, after such deeds are displayed on the world stage.
Soon forgotten as the hype fades.
When the coverage stops and the fanfare wanes.
Thoughts, prayers, tears and care, no longer see the light of day.
Returning to the status quo.
Police brutality against certain people – an accepted method of control.
Black youth wearing a hoodie and pants half-way down perceived as intimidation.
Seen as more dangerous than White men donning army fatigues, carrying guns.
A Black girl selling water at the side of the road warrants a complaint.
So a White someone calls the cops in.
A Black man deemed disrespectful and rude for asking a White woman to follow the rules.
She took that request as a threat.
To her the police is there to serve and protect.
It’s not just about that feel, it’s the knee-jerk reaction to call the police.
Apparently being used as shields and weaponry.
A stark difference between Black and White.
A comfort level, privilege, benefit, prerogative in plain sight.
Continually denied.
Elvis wasn’t condemned only because of his perky lips and gyrating hips.
It was the sound of his music.
From where it sprout, its origination.
The Black community.
The powers that be couldn’t fathom seeing their women and children respond with such elation.
Leaders still wanting to keep segregation.
America has known but choose to not do better.
Instead, people remain tethered to ignorance and indifference.
How does the removal of information and discussion help US?
Make our society and nation less dangerous?
Because teachers aren’t allowed to say.
It doesn’t make the questions go away.
Nor will the issues be erased.
The effects of history doesn’t just leave.
And without knowledge and effort, people recycle and repeat.
Children today and their children to come will enjoy less Rights and freedoms.
If we give more power and run to this Republican cult.
Gone are the days when there were no metal detectors in schools.
When children feared tests, not someone entering to shoot.
The peaceful transfer of power may already have seen its last hour.
Future Americans will not know politics without violence, bullying and deception.
Unless too America gives full way to authoritarian.
Then they wouldn’t be able to choose who they want to rule.
Diversity will be a bad word.
History will not be told.
Political positions will be for sale and to bribes, not earned.
As we continue to look down and degrade sh-t hole, we do worse.
The middle class will shrink.
The government will indoctrinate kids.
And when some can’t take it anymore, if they could, they will move to other shores.
But how will people know what to heed?
What they should avoid or defeat?
Without the knowledge and context of history.
Alas that won’t be a mystery.
Because they won’t know how to critically think.
Understand what they missed.
They would only have lived with others dictating and enforcing.
Stemmed from their parents’ choice to stay in the dark.
Convinced that knowing the truth about slavery and societal diversity will yield a black mark.
So they block.
Never taking stock.
As voters in some States are already agreeing that politicians and groups of parents ought to dictate on matters of education.
Control the academic curriculum.
Some of the same shun the forefathers’ vision of minimal corruption to politicians and to the Nation’s political and justice systems.
Voters who steer under the influence of disinformation and fear.
Choosing vile, dishonest and amoral to push their conservative views and “values”.
Changing America’s song.
“Immigrants” don’t belong.
Whites are at risk of being “replaced”.
The origin of that sentiment can easily be traced.
But people don’t want to know.
They just accept and contribute to its growth.
As Republican picks are allowed to use their elected positions to position themselves and other members of their Party to secure future wins.
Bypass the people’s choice to place who they see fit.
The American Dream not open to all, being reduced even more.
The imperfect Union changing course.
Now it seems that the making of policies and attending to collective needs are over-rated.
The power of, and for greed, as well as focus only to their belief, underestimated.
Blinders eliminate views of historical truths regarding racism and slavery.
Keeping US clueless so we don’t recognize or appreciate the assaults to democracy.
So focused on what we want and think we are being deprived of.
We let go of freedoms.
If we can’t recognize when it’s taken away from others, how will we know when it occurs to US?
Or if it’s a matter of indifference -The traps already set can easily be directed.
As it is, for right-wing, making America great is not just to the whims of conservatives.
But to the direction of extreme, buying into the belief that some in America are and ought to live supreme.
History repeats.
For many Americans though, history is dead.
They lack the understanding of what the forefathers fled.
Not wanting the rule of a monarchy.
Likely too, to escape the cruel of Christianity.
They chose to separate Church from State.
Not to use Christian “values” to dictate.
Which some Americans are trying to get for themselves.
History repeating itself.
Some Republicans are wanting to secure for them and theirs to live above the law.
Able to get scores from voters who themselves, or are of the bloodline that fled Maduro and Castro.
Leading this Nation to the direction they didn’t want their homeland to go.
History doesn’t repeat what it’s not permitted to.
Societies have already gone through the banning of books, censoring of information, a one-Party rule, the domination of one religion.
We’ve seen what happens to countries when regimes are given concentrated power and authority, without accountability.
Even to the eventual fight against authoritarian rule.
Yet it’s what some Americans are using their freedom to choose.
History doesn’t forget, people do.
We allow history to repeat by how we live, what we pick and refuse.
Blood, sweat and tears already shed doesn’t appear to matter.
As long as people can cling to the perception of getting whatever it is they’re after.
But when the day comes that we can’t dismiss the consequences of our discarded truths.
History will be forced to say “I told you”.