Our Alternative Country
White hoods
Confederate flags
Burning crosses
Callin’ us “fags”
Vicious and violent
Even if they can’t reach us.
But we don’t stand a chance
If those who could help don’t show up,
Speak up, Reach out for us.
Even then, when the streets
Are cleared of new bodies and fresh blood
We will march and we’ll scream
For the chance of a new world.
The proud and the bold
Speaking just to stand out
We unite as a unit
But not as a country.
We are the young and the free
Against those who would oppress us.
And those who would oppress us
Claim to be those who would educate us,
Foster us, claim us, save us
From our ignorance and stupidity.
We are “snowflakes” in the sweltering summer
Struggling against the heat of being silenced.
But we will not go quietly into the night.
Not when Flint, Michigan suffers a health crisis
Or our black youth go home in caskets
When they should be sent to higher classes.
The white supremacist of the new age
Raises a bible and a fist
Instead of a burning cross and a noose
They don’t even hide,
See, they’re proud of their creed.
And who are their enablers?
Would the President-elect come on and please stand up?
And all the others who follow him
Bowing to the orange calf cast in gold
Our America is one of diversity,
Of freedom, of opportunity.
And try as you might to rage against the storm
Winter is coming.
The “snowflakes” you would blame
For all the problems you have
Are an avalanche when amassed to become
The phalanx you never had.
When our Mexican fathers and mothers
Are severed from their families
No human is illegal and we will fight for them still.
When our planet is being leached
Of its natural resources,
The pap of life, our only blood and air
And the bodies of our Native elders
Float in rivers of oil and cold, hard, cash
We will not stay silent. We will show up, we will pay the price
To see that our nation is not taken by greed,
By hatred, intolerance, and fear of the “other”.
The white man’s legacy carries 500 years
Of slavery and bloodshed
And a supremacy complex.
The festering European footprint
And the wounds it has caused on the world
Have yet to be healed.
Especially in this land,
The one we call home,
As we paint our faces red, white, and blue
Under the shadow of a soaring eagle.
Built atop a palace of bones of
Navajo, Sioux, and Cherokee,
And on the backs of our genetic ancestors
From Botswana, Nigeria, and Chad
The roots of America’s family tree
Were fed from the blood of numerous wars
All to prove that we are who we say
And we will not back down even when it’s wrong.
I get paid 56 cents for the dollar a white man will earn
For the same job, same clothes, same duties and chores
And I’ll likely get raped before I’m 21.
Our breast-grabbing commander-in-chief
Would like to pretend it’s not true
But, of course wouldn’t every man?
He probably knows one of you.
I was born legally American
But not what you would call that
See, I’m brown, not white, and bilingual to boast
And I get rights called privileges that the rest of my family can’t host
Just because of a signature on a document I didn’t sign
On my birth certificate saying “she’s a citizen”
But it’s not a crime to be born someplace else
When will this so-called “great nation” learn
Its most brilliant minds were all foreign-born?
Your Tesla, your Einstein, your Madam Curie
All part of a worldwide pan-ethnic tapestry
But still, we exclude, and we shun and we brag
Our whiteness is what makes us better, our American-ness,
Still magnificently managing to miss the point
Of what a truly great nation should aspire to be.
Until this blood-money corporation
That attacks countries in the Middle East
Learns that a hijab is a symbol of peace
And that all races, religions, and creeds of this world
Belong in a place they shouldn’t have to be afraid,
This country will continue to be
An opportunity missed
Never learning from its mistakes
An empire destined to fall.
America the great?
Try, America the late.
Too late on civil rights, labor laws and universal healthcare
Things that the happiest countries in the world
Never had a problem to share.
Until racial wounds that never healed
Are not reopened just as they begin to scar
Until we understand that our poor citizens
Are brothers and sisters just like we are
This nation will remain a hollow shell of what it claims to be.
Our maxims are but words, our principles cheesy
The original sin of slavery continues to stain our legacy
And to stagnate our progress
And to prove that we’ll never learn
Our national leader is a dunce
Right after a great man we’d never accept
Because of his ebony-colored suit.
Until we finally learn this country does not belong to a single group
We will continue to fail to live up to our name.
For a country this divided
Cannot claim to be united.
Something wrong with this poem?
Replies are closed for this poem.
Your Poem's Voice
See what makes your poem unique — its voice, energy, themes, and the literary traditions it draws from.
Comments (2)
Log in to leave a comment.