Illustration by María María Acha-Kutscher
I wrote this because of the continuous issue of police brutality against black people. The brutality is due to their skin color because most of the incidents were just a result of racial profiling.
My name is on the news
My face is on newspapers, in magazines
As if I was a martyr
People talk about me as if I sacrificed my life
But i was just trying to live
Some say I shouldn’t have resisted
I shouldn’t have been out late
Others would say that the officer shouldn’t have fired 30 warning shots in my back
My cold body lays there as my mother weeps
My father holds her
All I can see is a light and the tracing of my body
Why did this happen to me
What’s going to happen to me
I didn’t know I was dead til Irealized I was watching my own funeral
All because of the color of my skin
My life is of less value than an animal
The white officer looked me in my face, smiled and pulled the trigger
The difference between him and I is he gets to walk
On the earth that I once lived and I
Well I am in the sky
Watching him lie
“He was violent.”
“He was a thug.”
But I know the truth.
I am none of those things
I was just a black kid, at the wrong place, and the wrong time
But damn I guess that is a crime.
