Mudita is not “sympathetic joy”
3 days ago
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(Spoken Work Poetry)
What are we doing?...What have we become?
We're just gang banging,
Lampin' - Hanging out under a street light on gangsta turf
waitin' for a Ghetto Star - our drug dealer to drop some elbow -
a pound of drugs.
We got a biscuit - a gat - a puppy - a pound - a nine -
That's a gun to a gangsta - and that's all fine.
We are on point - ready to fight -
targeting someone - or killing a rival.
We ain't scared a-no hotel or jail
hell doin' a nickle or five years in prison? - Ain't no big thang.
That kid on the corner or walkin' down the middle of the street?-
He done jumped in, he's already taken his initiation beating.
He ain't no wangsta - a wannabe gangsta,
He's a Picasso, he's good with a knife
and he won't hesitate to do some serious slashing -
leaving another brother lying in the street
with a buck fifty - that's a hundred and fifty stitches.
What are we doing?...What have we become?
Long ago we declared war on drugs,
It is a war we are losing.
Illegal drugs are flooding into America
like never before.
It's nothing personal - It's just business.
We are finally giving in and legalizing some drugs
for "Medical Reasons" they want you to believe.
If you can't beat 'em - join 'em -
and tax them for it too.
We are overtaxed - underpaid - many of us living in poverty
or at the very least, barely getting by.
And all the while, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
We are sick and tired of seeing people
standing on street corners with signs
begging for money.
We are sick and tired of not being able to afford health coverage.
We are sick and tired of the federal government
meddling in what little coverage we do have.
We are sick and tired of hearing politicians running for office
promising to go to Washington and fight big government
because they think that's what we want to hear.
We are sick and tired of our government fighting among itself.
We are sick and tired of having politicians lying to us.
We are sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Add to that the suppression of women's health rights.
If a group of women speaks out against it,
they are harassed, bullied and stalked for daring to do so,
insults and even death threats occur.
We want to dictate who someone should be allowed to love and to marry.
We use our religion to base our judgement
of the L.G.B.T. American citizen.
We thump our Bible, while using it to justify our ignorance.
What are we doing? ..... What have we become?
We holler about our "god-given right" to bear arms,
while in the local shopping centers, armed citizens mill about.
We dine in restaurants with rifles on our back.
We hand out leaflets to motorists.
We get into arguments defending those rights.
We feel we have to arm ourselves.
We have to have campus police.
We have to arm our teachers in order to thwart anyone -
and not just terrorists - but the ordinary American citizen -
who finally snaps from all the craziness
and would massacre our schoolchildren.
What are we doing? ... What have we become?
We are rioting in the streets.
We are at war with one another.
Today - we are looting and destroying businesses
that yesterday we supported,
all in the name of justice.
We are angry and we have been pushed to our limit.
There are weapons of war on U.S. city streets.
There is something gut-wrenching about the photos we see
of police officers with powerful military-style guns
from the roof of armored military-style vehicles.
We see those officers pointing these weapons
at unarmed civilians.
Why do police need roof-mounted machine guns
on armored vehicles? - weapons built to fight a faraway war.
Why are they now turned homeward?
The Department of Homeland Security
encouraged the militarization of police
through federal funds for "terrorism prevention"
they want us to believe.
The armored vehicles, assault weapons and body armor
borne by the police in our streets
are the fruit of turning police into soldiers.
It's not that individual police officers are bad people,
it's that shift in the American culture of policing
that encourages officers to think of the people they serve
as enemies.
This is not some nameless middle-eastern country
torn apart by strife, this is the United States of America
and we have to ask ourselves...
What are we doing? .... What have we become?
~ Jim Jordan
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