Virginia
ter·ror·ism
ˈterəˌrizəm/
noun
“the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.”
I woke up this morning
And turned on the TV
And saw people that looked like me
Marching with fire and screaming words so terrible I dare not repeat them.
I woke up this morning
And turned on the TV
And saw what I saw on election night.
It all played out in front of my eyes like some nightmare
Hate
Violence
Fear.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
In school we were taught that racism ended with the march on Washington
That Barack Obama was proof of our progress
But we were lied to
Fed the watered down version of our history.
Slavery was just an honest mistake
Colonization was necessary
And the KKK isn’t a terrorist group because it’s white and Christian.
Our history was stolen from us.
Virginia is only one example of how the hate that we so often pretend doesn’t exist
Thrives.
When your country was founded on hate
Built on the stolen lives of those who “looked different”
When the leader of the supposed “free world” builds walls and bans Muslims
This shit isn’t surprising.
America was built on it.
What do we do now?
What is there to say that will make things better?
How many condolences can we tweet and heartfelt Facebook posts can we write?
There has to be more than this.
Every single day
We have to get up
Go out
And decide who we want to be.
Choose not to hate
Choose not to put our heads in the sand and pretend days like today don’t exist
Because this is our world
This is America
It always has been.
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