Layla Riley-Hill | + Follow Poet |
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Racism is not a political opinion

A white man dies 
Millions cry
He believed in slavery
Yet the privilege will worship as if he was their saviour
It's easy to defend when your not affected by their behaviour
Sympathy becomes easy, when you claim to be 'superior'
Human rights - until its your black neighbour 

In a world where you can be anything, you can be kind
Easy to say when privilege makes you blind 
They were human - Just like the black person you lynched 
Ironic how their deaths never made you flinch
But a white man is shot, and all of a sudden your affected 

No backbone, no skeleton 
Stand for something 
Stand for anything
Sitting on the fence, when you have the power to make a difference 
You're not for 'equality', your just showing your cowardice 
You're not choosing peace -
You're just choosing ignorance
It's not admirable to show 'indifference'
You're not better, you're just selective 
And with that belief you'll end up on the wrong side of history

If you're gonna have selective empathy
At least use it for those worthy
Being white doesn't give you a pass to be a bully 
I dont care if they 'had a family'
Especially when black death for them is comedy 

Where is the outrage for police brutality
Or the centuries of slavery
Yet when it comes to the death of a white supremacist 
They're honoured with the medal of 'bravery"
Where's our medal for just existing
Where being black means we are criminalised for breathing 
And when we are killed instead of being mourned and respected 
A black persons death is mocked and celebrated 

We dont owe the oppressors our tears
The oppressed are allowed to celebrate one less danger
And if you've forgotten 
When we were lynched you took pictures with our dead bodies
So dont come with your moral high ground 
Talking about peace and kindness 
When at no point in history -
Did the world have sympathy
For the deaths of my people

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