I Must Ask

I must ask.

What has America done for my peoples? My Black and Native and Trans and Bisexual peoples? 

What good has it brought us, what opportunities has it given us, what barriers has it knocked down without us hammering at the doors?

Why are we all still unheard?

Why are the treaties spat upon and trampled, why are the neighborhoods policed beyond reasonable measure, why are we held in cages as children and denied the chance to walk in the sunlight and play in the sports?

When will you see the humanity of my peoples? When will you give my peoples the dignity you give yourselves?

For I will say to you that within me lies generations of unrest, generations of malice and malfeasance and malevolence and yet we are still not truly malcontent, no matter how many times America brands us such or in how many ways.

I must ask.

When will our hearts be given the same weight on the scales of justice as some cishet blondes tears?

When will our hopes be given the same silver linings of a retired steelworker?

When will we matter?

When will we count?

When will my tears be for joy, and not bitter grief?

When will We get the luxury of merely being afraid, instead of all the other things we have to be, including angry at the injustice.

How will we get there, if not by raising our voices and sacrificing our bodies in a holy martyrdom none of us seek or desire?

If the morality that you preach is not the morality that you follow, how can we give it the faith you demand of us?

We have given you the blood of our sons, our daughters, our siblings, our loves, our parents, our ancestors.

Yet your altar is still not done drinking, and your golden idol still gleams. Where is the hope in all of this among you?

We have it, we feel it, we live it every day, but the failure is not in within us…

.. it persists within you.

Until then: https://www.dyssonance.com/endure-22/