#AhmaudArbery

I thought I would edit this before considering if finished, but decided not to. The following was my gut response last week after reading about Ahmaud Arbery's murder.

Ahmaud

I do not want
my white privilege.
It does not elevate me.
It elevates no one.
It does not hurt me
I confess.
It makes my life easy.
It helps me, it does.
It hurts others -
the non-members
of my club -
the white club.
I'm in the club,
though I did not sign up.
I get the benefits,
though I pay no dues.
The non-members
pay my dues.
Black and brown people
pay my dues.
It's a screwed up system.
It builds walls to keep
brown people out -
walls to keep brown
people in - corridors
to push them
this way, and that.
It replaces walls
with minefields and
calls it progress.
It taunts, it lies, it exploits.
It kills, it kills, it kills.
But it helps me.
But I want to reject it.
It does not elevate me.
It elevates no one.
It leaves me
standing in mud -
in the mud of
a shameful past.
It leaves us all standing
in the mud of
a shameful past -
and the mud is still here
because the blood and
the tears still flow.
The mud will not dry
because the blood and
the tears still flow -
the blood of young men,
the tears of mothers.
The endless tears
of an entire race
keeps moist the mud -
a mud first formed
from the sweat
of their ancestors -
the builders of America.
I step up, but I sink
back down.
My life is easy,
but my feet are dirty.

R.L. Johnson 5/7/2020