‘I Know It When I See It’

Was that you who said the Black men should stop resisting and cooperate with police? Was it you who declared protests shouldn’t block traffic? Was it you saying “There’s no reason to be unpleasant.” “If they’re innocent they have nothing to worry about?” Was that you calling us animals in Ferguson, Minneapolis, Baltimore, Chicago …? Was it you who devil’s-advocated, “Slavery was legal back, then…“? Was that you celebrating Columbus Day? Were you posing in the picture with the wooden Indian statue, throwing up fake gang signs and grinning? Did I hear you proclaim, “We are all immigrants!”? Aren’t you the one who told me the facts behind ‘separate-but-equal,' Jim Crow, Black Codes, stolen children and stolen land were a conspiracy theory? Who reached across me, right in front of my face in the grocery store? Who accepted being served ahead of me when I was there first? Was it you who let the door close on me, right behind you? Did you discipline the Black girl for “attitude” after you laughed along with the white kid and sent him on his way? Were you the one goading that Black teen boy, stoking his anger toward a swing and an arrest, hungry for what would happen to him?

I know it when I see it. Free Palestine.

- AOD

Artwork by @shirien.creates

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