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Niamor Byas

Silence

War going on in our society

Why little Rebecca don’t have the same kind as me

Ya see it’s the dichotomy, pigment of our skin

They won’t understand only til when

We rise up as a community

kick and destroy all the foolery

 

No longer will we be silenced about the men shot down, blood dripping on the pavement

Or silenced about our black excellence because “look mama we made it”

 

No longer will we be silenced by the men who said “maybe her legs should have been closed”

Or silenced by the men who said “maybe it was the clothes she chose”

 

No longer will they oppress us in the land we built

No longer will we stay in silence for the brothers they killed

“That was our grand parents fault” well why is there racism still?

 

Why when he walk into the building, the white lady clutch her purse?

Next thing you know, another brother body being carried in a hearse

We will not be silenced for the knowledge we have learned

We will not be silenced for working twice as hard as the white man and getting less than he has earned

 

Everyone just waiting for us to attack so they can have an excuse

“Oh I️’m sure he had a gun, he’s black, I didn’t know what to do!”

 

We protest, we fight, everyday of our life

All so we can have supremacist laugh about why,

Laugh about how black life’s matter when white lives matter too

But how can you ask that question, was you in the fields, whipped til your back was blue?

Was your brothers being wrongly convicted and the police said “I had to shoot”?

 

I will no longer be silenced for the color of my skin

I will no longer be silenced because then and only then

Will our oppressors look up and start listening in

I will not be silenced because I️ am tired of pretending

That I️ am not scared to be the next victim.

 

I will not be silenced.

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