Tag Archives: riots

Civil Rights Movement

Civil rights movement

Alive and well in our young

Picking up the torch

We hoped these days passed

Only to smoulder again

Into raging fire

.
~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

Black Smoke Wafts Skyward

Black smoke wafts skyward

Baltimore the latest nail

To be pounded home

How many more before the

Coffin is sealed and buried

Repeated killing

Just a different city

Will we never learn

These–our brothers and sisters

Share the same constitution

But not the same rights

They are treated as lesser

By their skin color

Disgusting as it may be

This is our America

 

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~


Faded Asphalt Riddled with Glass and Stone

Embed from Getty Images

 

Faded asphalt riddled with glass and stone

Scorched deep black by disenfranchised frustration.

Called thugs and lawless, anger bubbles over,

But still nothing has changed.

The sixties are alive in well in the twenty-first century.

Civil rights are still just a dream for many

Though we’d like to believe otherwise.

So what! Segregation has been legally abolished,

The back of the bus is no longer reserved,

But what the law cannot abolish is racism.

It cannot regulate the prejudice minds of man,

It cannot extract it from our senses,

Perhaps blindness is the answer,

Plucking of the eyes from the skull.

What else can save this species,

It has been on this spiral for eternity?

Look at our history!

Enslavement, segregation, discrimination,

Poverty, lynchings, so little progress.

Yes, some of these have faded,

Replaced by polite prejudice,

But still nothing has changed.

Perhaps one day,

The ignorant will close their eyes,

Open their hearts

And realize that color is only

…Skin deep.

 

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

 

Perhaps Armageddon Has Finally Come

Perhaps armageddon has finally come

Ferguson knows this all too well.

Do not be fooled–justice hasn’t been done

Though the politicians try to hard sell.

 

Claiming that the process has properly worked

Cries the President down to the prosecution.

Their responsibilities so blatantly shirked

It’s sad to think that this is the solution.

 

Corporate media you are largely to blame,

Yes you, CNN, MSNBC and Fox News!

Refusing to hang your guilty heads in shame

You planted the bomb then lit the fuse.

 

In the end you got just what you wanted,

That sound bite and graphic video clip.

Those agitators you shamelessly taunted

Full team coverage that never has slipped.

 

Still in the end a young man lies dead,

His parents still mourning their loss.

Long after you turn your cameras and fled

Forgetting your actions have costs.

 

And you men of justice with the law on your side

You’ve failed at the tasks we entrust.

Behind the grand jury with deception you hide,

Your verdicts in our faces you thrust.

 

So tell me what’s fair in this game that you play

Using the media to determine outcome.

It’s wrong and you know it no matter what you may say

While at our heads you are holding a gun.

 

You get what you give in this violent game

Though I wish that it wasn’t to be so.

So pin to your chests that badge of true blame

Donning makeup for the cameras next show.

 

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

 

With Tears I Say Goodbye

With tears I say goodbye

Though I do not know your pain,

Nor the pain of your ancestors

Inflicted at the hands of those that look like me.

When I look in the mirror

I am not proud,

I am not proud of our past,

Not proud of of our inhumanity,

Not proud of the picture our hands are painting.

With a broad brush,

We paint in your blood,

Red and warm as mine

Though left to dry cold in the streets.

We stand around,

As if awaiting applause,

While your spirit fades,

Showing just how little we care.

I know this is not me,

Though I know you can’t see it;

And that these words are just words

Unable to bring you back from the dead.

Your family grieves,

But their grief is overshadowed,

Trampled down under the weight of constant diversions

Portraying you as something less than human.

Yet none of this matters!

Injustice cannot hide forever

Behind an iron blue citadel

Mortared with lies, racism and hatred.

 

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

 

AUTHORS NOTE: I was not going to write another piece about the tragedy in Ferguson Missouri today, but I find Michael Browns’s death so troubling that I couldn’t help myself.  His death in my eyes shows that racism still runs rampant in this country though many of us would prefer not to admit it.  For those that would like to pretend this never happened, I think it is time you opened your eyes.  Explain to me how being stopped for jaywalking could escalate to the point where a young man is shot six times and killed, then left alone in the street for so long.  This is completely beyond my comprehension.