You Matter
a poem by Etan Thomas

For cats who weren’t born with a form of silverware

But inner-city dental care,

Or dudes who pursue red, white, and blue promises from people who fail the acknowledgment that for some, life just ain’t no crystal stare,

For constant letdowns from juries who fail to purge, punish, or hold those accountable who are sworn to protect and serve,

For those who keep hearing about all of these good cops but always encounter the bad,

And cats who are tired of seeing victims on trial for their own murder whenever the triggerman has a badge,

Who can’t stand seeing these wack jurors come out after the fact with how they believed the cop was guilty but for some reason couldn’t convict them,

All I wanna do is take the chains off,

Tired of seeing killers suddenly become victims.

 

For every Emerald Snipes and Jahvaris Fulton, every Tiffany Crutcher and Allysza Castile, every Cameron Sterling and Erica Garner, and every other child who has lost their loved ones to trigger-happy cops who get paid leave and GoFundMes,

Don’t you believe for a minute that your life doesn’t matter.

No matter the chatter across non-indictments and not-guilty verdicts,

Don’t ever let them insert inferiority no matter how much their injustice burns.

I know you’re perplexed by the earth because it seems to get worse when it turns

And we’re still yearning for respect

In a system that was built for us to fail,

Telling us tales of freedom and justice for all,

Gaming us like an arcade, spending our little quarters straight playing ourselves

Until our lives are over.

Trying to have us swinging and kicking in the air without the Wii controller,

Straight wasting our energy.

But this ain’t no game,

They’re letting monsters free,

Like Darren Wilson and Betty Shelby,

Daniel Pantaleo, George Zimmerman, Howie Lake II, and Blane Salamoni,

Cowards hiding behind badges

Like Rudolph Giuliani,

Stopping-and-frisking our reality,

Trying to destroy our souls, diminish our spirits, and subjugate our mentalities.

 

But they want to say it’s about the flag,

Knowing we had a list of Kaepernick’s grievances from the genesis of his taking his stance.

 

That’s why they’re taking a knee:

To protest political corruption, systematic racism, and police brutality.

They straight hijacked the message into disrespecting the country and the military.

It’s like they gentrified the entire protest,

Put up a Starbucks, a dog park, and a tanning salon turning our statement into a watered-down All Lives Matter mess.

This is bigger than Donald Trump and his foolishness,

This is about justice.

 

They wanna see us

Fall like it’s autumn,

Snakes in our garden, but with a scope we spotted them.

 

We remain targets that enter your optics,

Our objects appear bigger in your mirror but it’s clearer to see

The fear in your eyes when you see

Us in your view.

Shoot first, ask questions last.

That’s how too many of these so-called policemen act.

 

But we see you

Straight denying the truth,

Putting on a facade of protect-and-serve and a false equivalency to your red, white, and blue.

 

But the darkness will come to light

And our strength will surprise you

When your walls come tumbling down just like Confederate statues.

 

And no matter how many of our heroes you get to follow your nose like Toucan Sam,

Putting a camera in their face for them to condemn a people you can’t stand,

Just to get pats on the top of their heads by pale hands,

You’re not keeping us in your frying pan,

Purposely burning our idols,

Straight fricasseeing their minds,

While they’re holding the mic,

So they can no longer see the difference between what’s wrong and what’s right.

Got them saying things potent as a lightning bolt when it strikes.

It’s a pity,

Seeing them make statements that drown our energy.

How many millions

Did it take for them to break icons and get them to spit what they ain’t feeling,

Embracing Satan while they’re slithering with pythons?

But we won’t let their steppin-and-fetchin create dissension within our midst,

We know Black Face ain’t ever cease to exist,

Your created illusions ain’t nothing but failed magic tricks.

Forget happiness,

Our pursuit is of justice, and we refuse to let go of the clutch

Until we force you to switch up your style like girls in double dutch.

We’re weathering your storm

With the strength of our ancestors.

 

Before our courage is born,

The weight of your hate gives us contractions and births determination into existence.

You can’t see these.

You see the fire we spit when we unleash the dragon, call us Khaleesi.

 

See, pressure can either bust pipes or produce diamonds,

And no matter how high the mountain, we keep climbing.

 

So that’s why we stay blasting off like rockets,

And why no matter what you do your arms are STILL too short to box with . . .

We’ve got God rolled up in our pockets,

You can’t stop us.

No matter how much your privatized prisons and mandatory sentencing you use to try to lock us,

We’re taking your evil and teaching our youth

That y’all don’t teach them in school cuz y’all don’t want them to know the truth,

Like how society’s out to get them,

How they flood the airwaves with music that will land them in the prison system,

About the school-to-prison pipeline and your plan to get them in them,

But how they’re purposely not taught and it’s not put in their curriculum.

See, we’re assisting cats like Westbrook,

Setting them up for greatness,

We’re telling them that ain’t no such thing as halfway crooks

And y’all will go all out with how much y’all hate us.

 

You can’t take our heart no matter how much you try to break us down.

That goes for every person, place, or thing that describes a noun.

 

Everyone in Gotham City wants to throw rocks at our dome,

We’re like Bruce Wayne out the bat cave in his home,

King of the jungle, we’re a bunch of Mufasas on the throne.

 

Can’t none of y’all defeat us,

Like Muhammad Ali looking at the draft board sayin, Even if you try to punish me, you still can’t beat us,

 

We come from brass feet and hair of lamb’s wool,

The only thing that can bring us down is gravitational pull,

So keep lying to yourself thinking we’ll ever give up on us.

We’re still screaming, Black Lives Matter,

And we’re going to keep pursuing justice.