It lingers in places high and low. In churches, and private clubs, and banks, and police precincts. In schools, and businesses, and in our courts, and jails. On highways and byways, and the various nooks and crannies of our public lives. It lays wait like a vampire in the dark, seeking opportunities to feed its bloodlust. It discriminates not between our young or old. It preys on our sons and daughters every chance it gets...seeking to satisfy the insatiable lusts of empty amoral souls.
It ignores the law, assuming that a "jury of its peers" will continue to turn a blind eye to its bloody indiscretions. It ignores the changes occurring all around that tells it in no uncertain terms that a new wind cometh, and that the days of its acrid pungency are numbered. It clings to perches of ignorance and denial, hoping against Hope that the demise that seems most certain will somehow not come. It holds on to the cliff of its irrationality like a drowning man to a straw. It sticks to the tongue of its apostles like maggots on rotting flesh.
It is what you smell when the killer of Trayvon Martin opens his mouth. It is what comes forth when the chokers of Eric Garner pass by. It is what is causing the firestorm in Ferguson, Missouri right now. EIGHT TO TEN BULLETS IN AN UNARMED 18 YEAR OLD!!!
Parents. Gather your black sons. Gather your black daughters. Tell them again the history of our enslavement. Tell them again the reality of Jim Crow. Of social and political exclusion. Of water hoses and rabid dogs. And lynchings. And assassinations. Of bigotry. Of murders unsolved and ignored. Tell them about the criminals who think that their whiteness will absolve them of the sins that stain their souls. Arm them with the knowledge they need for a struggle that continues.
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