A Black and White Issue

God Damn, is all that you have to say

When the hating of another’s race

Is oh such commonplace ‘cause we ain’t the lucky few

With silver spoons and a gold balloon.

Our blood’s our own

And it sells for sixty cents on the dollar.

In the Land of the Free

Justice is a game.

The Home of the Brave 

Can’t bear to look at the text for

I would wager too much

The neighbors they love have a real similar face.

Let’s Go! When Black blood flows from

Our Harlem to the Rhine.

191 days under fire–

No lottery winners here.

It’s us or them from Champagne to Alsace

We came back–fifteen hundred less. They didn’t.

But at home we give it all away,

Will our rights ever see the day?

We’ll draw red lines to race to abroad

While they cross hard lines at home.

What’s a trench to a picket fence,

What’s my life to theirs?

Don’t Tread on Us since we

Don’t shirk away from the fight

When fascism lurks in France’s dreary nights–or

Does it fester in the city

On the hill

Of our home?