America, You Are FUBAR
America, you are FUBAR.
Fucked
Up
Beyond
All
Recognition.
I do not recognize you.
I cannot stand you.
In grade school, they made me, “Pledge. My. Allegiance.”…to you.
My grade school teachers told me people who committed crime, did the time.
And yet, when I woke up that day as a white adult, I was still drinking the Kool-Aid.
I was still believing that in America,
criminals:
those who committed crimes
were punished.
And then, I woke up.
After not drinking the Kool-Aid nor indulging in the fountain of whiteness.
And I stopped drinking the Kool-Aid.
And I realized the Kool-Aid tasted like lies and watered down, moldy sweet sickness.
America, who does your flag (your stars and stripes) serve?
You stole your stars, all fifty of them from the indigenous owners of the land.
You stole your stripes, all thirteen of them from the indigenous owners of the land.
You stole the red, white, and blue from African, Latin, and Caribbean captives and enslaved them. And you stole the red, white, and blue from the indigenous owners of the land and drove them into poverty.
The red, white, and blue look like oppression.
Red, for the blood you murderously spilled. White, for the washing, the conditioning, the molding, the conforming, the supremacy you thrust upon the people. Blue, for the bruising, the abusing of those who fail at white supremacy.
America, you owe your Black and Brown peoples.
America, you need to pay up Lady Justice’s busted tab.
America, you need to criminalize the White perpetrators who broke down your capitol’s walls, who infiltrated and vandalized, who murdered, who threatened, who harassed, who made a mockery of justice, and who perverted the law.
America, you need to have integrity. Right the wrongs of the last four years. Imprison Trump. Shut down the divisiveness. Snuff the fires of hatred.
America, your people deserve justice. We deserve to recognize you by the talk we’ve been taught, so walk that damn walk.
Stretch your legs, America, drink your water, unclench your jaw. The marathon of justice is waiting. We are ready to put you through your paces. Get off your passive ass and get to stepping.
Read the follow-up piece to this, entitled America is RUBAR: The America I Want to See.
Visual representation of story on @tolbert_on_medium Instagram.
