We Fight Now

We Fight

We fought when we were kids

Just to play on the same swing

We fought when we were in middle school

Just for the right to drink from the same fountain

We fought when we were in high school

Just to be able to ask her out

We fought when we were in college

Just to cast our vote

We fought in the troops

Just to protect the land

Because it’s ours too

We fight now

Not for the same swing sets

Or the same fountain

Or the right to ask her out

We fight now

So our sons aren’t gunned down in the street by those who are meant to protect us

And cold-blooded murders aren’t seen as okay because the victim is black

So our daughters aren’t ashamed of their hair

So our sons aren’t seen as thugs

So our Fathers don’t see their kids lying dead in the street

So our mothers don’t cry at the graves of their children

We fight now

So we don’t have to hear the word Ni**er aimed at us from someone trying to seem more “black”

So we don’t have to say to our children:

“If a cop talks to you keep your hands out of your pockets, move slowly, never turn your back, do everything they say”

So we don’t have to explain to our children that white kids don’t have to do that

So we don’t have to say to our lids that because they are black people will hate them

We fight now

Not for the right to share a bus

Or the right to share a bathroom

Or the right to share a school

We fight now

For the right of life

For basic human rights

For our kids

We fight now

Because we need black history month, so people are aware

Because we need black outs

Because we have different social standards

We fight now

So we aren’t thugs

So we don’t hear slurs

So people don’t feel our hair

So people don’t change seats on a bus

For the same restrooms

For the right of asking her out

For the swing set

For the vote

We fight now

So we aren’t just our skin

Because we are more than our skin

We are more than just an exotic creature in a white man’s world

We fight for the same reasons our grandfather fought for