They Don’t Care About Us

I’m scared of them.

I’m scared of the people meant to protect me.

I should be more bothered.

I should be angry.

But angry gets people like me thrown in a cell.

Angry gets people like me shot on the street.

Angry gets people like me yelled at,

Beat up,

And killed.

Oh, sympathetic faces is just about all I get.

A few, “Speak your truths!”

As I pour out my soul.

I hand over my heart,

And you smile and nod.

I learned long ago that,

They,

Don’t,

Care,

About,

Us.

“Who is us?”

“Who are they?”

If you don’t know, you’re a part of them.

The fact that someone can look me in the face and say,

“Oh, prejudice doesn’t exist anymore.”

Makes me angry.

So many things about this world make me angry.

But I’m not allowed to be angry, am I?

I’m not allowed to be angry because I’m a threat in their eyes.

I scare them.

Calling someone stupid in the third grade because they made fun of an entire race,

Resulted in me getting told to control my temper.

I was the one picking fights.

I was the aggressive one.

I know I’m not alone.

We have no outlet.

We tell someone off, we’re mean, rude, harsh.

We fight back, we’re aggressive, probably need anger management.

They have every outlet you can imagine.

They can pull out their gun and shoot a man walking down the street if they’re having a rough day.

And who stops them?

No-one.

Murder is legal if a white cop kills an innocent black man.

If a white man kills a black man in “self-defense.”

Yeah, right.

“15.8% of students reported experiencing race-based bullying or harassment.”

Those students grow into scared adults.

Scared adults getting even more afraid after they see one of their own online.

Crying out for his dead mother,

Knowing they could be next.

It’s a forty-year-old man today.

Tomorrow,

It could be a first grader on the ground,

A knee on his neck,

Begging for his life,

For his mother,

For anyone, anything,

To help him.

Is that what it takes?

Will it take your sister,

Your mother,

Your daughter,

For them to see?

How long must we suffer?

How,

Long?

“On average, Black men in the US receive sentences that are 19.1% longer than those of white men convicted for the same crimes.”

Will it take your brother,

Your father,

Your son?

I don’t want to wait that long.

They’re holding us in chains and telling us to wait.

But I’m tired of waiting.

Tired of waiting for them.

Because,

They,

Don’t,

Care,

About,

Us.

They don’t care.

We’re tools for them.

Scapegoats,

Toys,

People they can frame,

Abuse,

And kill,

Without any worry of retribution.

I thought the tear gas, mace, and beatings had ended.

I thought, maybe, things are getting better.

Maybe they see.

But no.

One stray water bottle,

And they’ve got tanks on us.

It’s sickening.

They are the monsters.

They should be locked up.

But they roam free.

Murderers roam free.

“Firearms were the predominant method of suicide among African Americans regardless of sex or age, accounting for 47.42% of all suicides. Suffocation was the second most prevalent method (29.9%).”

Half of us are being killed,

The other half are committing suicide.

The same,

Exact,

Way.

Oh, but don’t worry.

After you finish tuning out my speech,

You can go on back to live in ignorance of what YOUR people have done.

The pain,

And suffering,

And death you’ve caused.

I wouldn’t expect any different.

After all,

We’ve got to care for ourselves because,

They,

Don’t,

Care,

About,

Us.

• Lianne Noel