Every bit of this poem by Lemon Anderson is fantastic, but things get especially powerful around 2:43:
Allow me to share three of my favorite excerpts from Lemon’s work:
1. Starting at 0:57:
“‘Cause, more schools means way less prisons, more education, better odds, healthier communities to live in, more love, more justice, and justice shouldn’t discriminate.”
2. Starting at 2:52:
“One boy guilty of poverty, his hands raised, ‘don’t shoot,’ and Ferguson burnt down. Now we know the name Mike Brown, left there with three square holes in the gutter, a mother’s son beatless. Our stomachs left sick.”
3. Starting at 3:08:
“Then came the Lucy man, Eric Garner, from the Wu Tang district choked by an officer, killed wearing his six children on his sleeve and now we, the millions are yelling his last words ‘I can’t breathe,’ and now we can’t breathe until we move forward behind the democracy re-preached. Can’t breathe until we stop putting guns in the hands of the children we teach. We cannot breathe until we become a nation proud of its immigration, restoring love back into our homes instead of fear of our mothers not being from here. We will not breathe, determined to succeed until we get freedom, health, and justice for the young people living in between the lines, for they are children, the future and they will lead us to the promised land and the fire next time.”
There are many wonderful things that 2014 brought us, but unless we also face the ugliness, we’ll be unable to overcome the injustices that hold our society back.
