Is this what it means to be black in America? To fear the ones that were meant to serve and protect? 

It seems black lives don’t matter in the face of those who have the ability to kneel on our necks. 

See we knelt to bring awareness.

You knelt to oppress. 

We raise our fist and say don’t shoot.

You raised your guns to our chest. 

How many times do we have to die before there is change? If this is America why aren’t we treated as people in the land of the free and home of the brave. Instead we get bullet wounds, reminded of what we couldn’t do. And all that what left is pain. 

We tried protesting peacefully. Yet it did more harm than good. 

We screamed Black Lives Matter!!

Yet people are still contemplating if they should. 

Being black means excellence. But having a dark complexion must mean he’s up to no good. Rest In Peace to Trayvon Martin who died Feb 26 in 2012 for putting up his hood. 

And once again we riot. Screaming Black lives matter because our people are dying. You say all lives matter and while that’s true …you used it to prove once again that my people should be silenced. We live in 1 country with two systems and you wonder why my people get violent. And to my black community … Martin Luther King once changed the world with peaceful protest without burning anything. So blessed be the peacemaker who fought against segregation. And to the people who forgot what that peaceful demonstration ended with … he was a victim of assassination.

It’s funny because we get one month to Celebrate the black history. A month that’s filled with culture and how much we have actually changed this world we know. Yet we are still enslaved by the chains we can’t seem to break that started hundreds of years ago. 

Malcom X said it best, If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” Being black automatically puts you in a position to die, and that’s what my people are expressing. 

We have died for this country. Both as a curse and a blessing. Yet one fights for this country’s safety and the other fights for his life, and that’s what is upsetting. Officers and other onlookers watch as he spoke his last words, and all we have left is the video that is virally spreading. Don’t you understand that even if it doesn’t affect you, not saying anything is what is silently deadly. They all heard crying and begging. Ignored while he was bleeding and sweating.  

“I can’t breathe.” 

The words he spoke as that knee was the weapon. As we scream Black Lives Matter, how many more of us have to die until you learn the message. 

Black Lives Matter.

Will Johnson recited this emotional poem which he authored at Saturday afternoon’s Peaceful Protest held at Columbia’s Makle Park.