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That’s the way it is…
I drive across 3 counties for work every day.
I count the Confederate flags along the way.
That has always been so puzzling to me,
Why would you fly the flag of the loser?
When so many have fought and died so we can ALL be free.

By the time I was 6 I had been taught to fear.
Different was bad, same was good.
Same story year after year.

When I was 8 I asked,
Why do black people have to be out of town by dark?
The reply – that’s the way it is.
When I as 12 I asked,
The nuns taught us about social justice, why don’t we have that here?
The reply- that’s the way it is.
When I was 16 I asked,
Why don’t black and white people date?
The reply – that’s the way it is.
When I was 20 and learned some world history,
I asked,
Why didn’t black people get their 40 acers and a mule?
Why did Jim Crow laws exist?
Why would we need separate schools?
The reply – that’s the way it is.
When I was 21 I worked in an office where I was the only white.
 I asked – why are black women so angry?
Listening to their daily existence blew my mind.
Yet, to me, my lost young self, they were so caring and kind…

At 40 I became a nurse.
I raged at the lack of, the disparity of healthcare,
The unnecessary disease and death.
I asked over and over – why???
How can we just let people die?!
The reply – that’s the way it is.

 Long ago I realized life was often unfair.
Much more unfair to some, rather than others,
The preachers would preach of sisters and brothers.
In the streets it was same and other.

That’s the way it is,
Until it IS NOT.

Too many years of smile and nod,
Walk in the middle, toe the line.
The time for silence is over.
The time for change is NOW
That's the way IT IS!

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