May be..they don’t hate you; they are Afraid
-Tariku
Abas Etenesh-
What
is veiled like hatred,
Could
have a story to tell,
And
before you claimed “I am hated”
Please
PAUSE
And
allow the dust of emotions settle;
When, in the land of ‘the free’,
Integrity
grins at your peril,
And
the laws trample your feet at will,
When
the media reports you ONLY as a brute,
For
all the pains you suffered for being decent;
Remember,
When
the ‘hater’ stares with bloodshot eyes,
Puffed
with choreographed-wild-confidence,
Surrounded
by vexed tongues,
Ululating
derisive rhythm:
Marshalling
a prejudice to glorify a systemic shame,
Pigeonholing
your experience into a lazy definition,
That
derives your humanness out of the color of your skin,
Or
the language of your arbitrary kin,
All
the system did is –hide- its fears from your gaze;
Remember
When
you look at the ‘hater’s eyes’ -look also through,
For
it mirrors a fretted soul with a catalog of guilt,
Raged
as told and not of offence,
Struggling
to hide its bewildered state,
Of
not knowing the cause he was hurled to protect,
Except
for being told that you constitute a threat,
He
is a victim too.
Remember,
They
don’t hate you; they are afraid,
In
their heads –shame is imprisoned;
Hatred
is not fate, it is a wobbly existence informed by fret,
What
you see surfaced through language of abhorrence,
Is
the lingering shadow of a stable body that lurks,
In
the power structure of the system,
Cemented
by economic prowess.
Let's not be fooled.
When
the op-ed pages of the daily papers,
In
their social-politic-analytic-gimmicks,
Measuring
human value per the number of ads per sponsor,
Count
your corpse as they would for statistics in abattoir,
Tallying
your demise as a pleasurable slip in video games,
When
quotas are legalized for prisons,
With
‘you’ as the imprisoned in the legislator’s mind,
All
is but aimed at chipping profit from your captive demeanor;
Remember,
The
system knows no emotional currency of love or hate,
It
has been-and it-is and will-always-be about profit,
Before
you wonder ‘why do they hate me?’
And
dissipate your struggle into emotional mime,
Stand
and gaze at the ‘hater’s face,
There
you will see the dollar sign tattooed in his eyes,
Saying:
I want to reap from your captivity,
While raping your social standing and
liberty,
But please, remain by the delimited territory
of emotions,
As that is the greatest thing this
nation needs for ablution;
And
a please give me dividends for my enterprise
And we get fooled once again;
Remember,
Never
is respect what you seek from others, but gain it,
Never
is love that you garb it from others, but give it,
Never
is a bill paid by food stamps-though imposed- but by sweating,
Never
is history learned through forgetting, but by knowing,
Let's not be fooled,
They
don’t hate us; they are afraid
In
their heads –century old- guilt is imprisoned,
Hatred
is not fate, but cowardly existence informed by retreat,
What
you see spelled out through the language of abhorrence,
Is
just a shadow that keeps track of its real body in economics?
Yet,
this we should know my folks,
What
informs their action is cowardice;
Cowardice
to face their culpability;
For
the four century of imposed servitude,
That
turned our ancestors into financiers
Of
a new project called: ‘The land of the
free’
And
for the check our ancestors signed in sweat and blood,
For
the wealth and comfort the ‘hater’ now claims to have;
Living in ‘the home of the brave,’
Yet,
facing the truth is bankrupting,
So
they only slumber under the weight of reality,
And
escape into ‘legal shooting rampage’;
And
blame you for the width of the hole in your head,
That
their bullets made passage;
Remember-
They
don’t hate you; they are afraid,
In
their conscious –guilt is imprisoned,
Hatred
is not fate, it is a wobbly existence informed by fret,
What
surfaced through language of abhorrence,
Is
just a shadow that keep track of its real body in economics,
Let's not be fooled.
What language
is that I hear from you dear brother,
While
sweating to relieve yourself and your child of pain,
That
prolonged for years- Twenty Scores,
Don’t
condemn yourself to relive it any further,
Through
emotional take of the systemic violence,
Love and
hate is a personal choice reveled,
Yet your
situation is not an accident but designed,
Where
every unintended pace you thread,
Would
cost you a thousand set traps ‘legally’ insulated,
As
the prophet Malcolm X once said:
“We
are trapped, double trapped, triple trapped,”
That
could only be undone through speaking the right language
Of
self respect, of controlling own destiny,
Through
the first step of controlling your own money;
So
now I hear you say they hate me- once again,
Echoing
the voices of 60s and before,
As if
it were your situation’s core,
But
how many ways are there to be fooled;
And
how many ways to fall for it while lamenting “we are hated?”
The system knows no emotional currency of love or hate,
It has been-and it-is and will-always-be about profit,
Let's not be fooled,
There are questions, by the
deprived masses,
That keep coming through the
ages:
Like: why are we stuck in a
reality every bit laced with nightmare?
And there are answers that
remain intact through the ages:
In a world that runs on the
fuel of monetary exchange,
with designed dispossession and abuse;
Chanting moral slogans shall help
but heal symptoms;
Only souls that strive for just
power in economics,
Shall break a deprivation-bondage,
Remember,
Never
is respect what you seek from others, but gain it,
Never
is love that you garb it from others, but give it,
Never
is a bill paid by food stamps, but by sweating,
Never
is history learned through unlearning it, but by knowing,
Should
you need respect?
Create
economic might, by respecting your ‘dime’s weight.
(To Michael Brown and
all those souls wrongly accused, jailed, stereotyped, labeled; and also those who are
denied decent education, denied the dignity as human beings, arbitrarily
killed, arbitrarily defined and economically disenfranchised.)
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