Image source: https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/18-02-2018/pride-and-the-police/

Brown bodies and blue uniforms

A poem for our time

Who do you call
When the people paid to keep your brown body safe
Make you feel erased

Because they love their uniform
More than they love you

What do you do
When you’re afraid
And the newspapers say

You’re a muppet
A lunatic
This is what inclusion looks like, idiot
Go back to your fringe

What do you do
When your brown skin gets you arrested
And put in prison more often
By people in blue uniforms

But blue uniforms are considered
More important
Than brown bodies

Your phone company thinks so too
So does your bank and TV
So do the people on Facebook and Twitter

Look, there’s a rainbow car coming
It says ‘Safer Communities Together’
Maybe they can help us?

Oh, they drove past
I guess there’s no room for scared brown bodies
In the rainbow