A Guy Who Looks Like Me Lies Dead In The Street

They believe we have nothing to live for so they carry on with their lives and carelessly throw shameful eyes upon ours.


Yes we are DIFFERENT!
It is evident, we are not the same.  Your world doesn't understand mine, my world doesn't understand yours, so we war in our own beautiful America.  I'm too mesmerized in anger, in fear, to fixate my eyes across seas to that war.  A guy who looks like me lies dead in the street.  His life is a memory.  A headline.  Your headlines, they ruin us, they maximize your own misconception of my lifestyle, of my roots, of my history, of my mama's history.  You were not here! Not until it was time to bring the camera's out and shine that bright hot light on THIS story to glorify YOUR understanding of who I am.  I am the guy lying dead in the street.  He is like me.  We are not different.


Why don't you come into my neighborhood and educate these children you call so poor, so helpless, give them the chance you scream they never had.  Since their strained home has ruined them with anxiety and paranoia, and you've studied them, you've written them, and you know them, why don't you find a way to educate them despite their helplessness.  Teach them what you teach America; that they are unworthy of a meaningful life, and that they are not equal, teach them that they are indeed DIFFERENT.


This IS about race relations.  This IS the year 2015.  We keep finding ourselves in this repeated cycle of history and each time we reach this point we become ruined, our entire generation ruined.  Just stop rolling your camera's.  Stop capturing a story you are not experienced enough to tell.  You are getting it all wrong.  It is not the dead guy in the street that is angry.  It was your own.  It was them.  The ones who are different, who uphold themselves on levels of God's, rulers of the land, this beautiful land.  The ones who are so different, my difference is inferior by default.  They just keep spinning this cycle, repeating our history, shooting their guns, and killing the guys that look like me.  The guy who lies in the street dead.  His cycle has stopped spinning. His History cut short.  You removed his voice.  You took away another voice who could have rose with us and spoke with us to tell you that we are DIFFERENT. My world is different. 


What do we tell his mother? What do we tell his father? What do we tell the man, the young man, the woman, the young woman?  What do we tell the people who look like me? A guy who looks like me lies dead in the street. What do we tell the voices still ready to preach?  Animals when you stare in their eyes, do you not see defeat?  Hands up! Get on the ground! Put your hands behind your back! Boy don't you look at me that way, quit talking that smack! Boom! Boom! Officer needs back up! Officer needs back up! A guy who looks like me lies dead in the street. A guy who looks like me lies dead in the street.


Written By,
Michelle D. Jones