“Black Sorrow”
by Katia Laurent-Joseph

When my mother birthed me, she did not tell me:

my skin color will be the main cause of my death,

my blackness is the main reason for my lynching, shooting, and killing,

my black and brown brothers and sisters were born into death row,

my existence is a threat to someone else’s privilege,

George Floyd will be lynched by the blue mob mafia,

the criminal system has contempt for black bodies,

my black and brown brothers and sisters’ blood are still being used as fertilizer for modern day prison plantation just as the blood and the sweat of our slave ancestors;

She did not tell me my blood; my black and brown sisters and brothers’ blood is not important for an oppressive system that is kneeling on our necks until it sucks the life out of us;

She did not tell me, in the 21st century, my black and brown sisters and brothers will still utter the words “I can’t breathe” just as our ancestor couldn’t breathe in the Transatlantic Passage.

She did not tell me that the modern-day lynch mob wants to Make America Great Again.
Make America Great Again: a black person was lynched.