No Justice No Peace

It’s a foreign language to me.
Chanting, protesting, even picketing,
things I’ve often seen but never partaken in.
Let alone the rioting, and the looting.

There are righteous rioters,
those who do it not out of opportunism
but who do it because they feel backed into a corner,
like a wounded animal, nothing left but to fight
with everything in their souls.

It’s a foreign language to me.

Because I haven’t lost neighbors and family
to overreacting cops.
I haven’t grown up listening
to stories of my ancestors on plantations.
I haven’t feared for my life
when pulled over by those red and blue lights.

It’s a foreign language to me
because I am an oppressor.

Therefore, it is my responsibility
(and yours, regardless of who you are)
to listen before I speak,
to seek to understand,
to know that I don’t know,
that none of us know everything.

To fluently understand
No Justice No Peace
I must learn the language.