Stolen land, stolen labor, unreturned favors
Like flies they swarm, like maggots they feed,
But we are all people,
bold and brave – beautiful and broken.
Giants crush those under their feet,
Guards holding semi-automatics roam the streets,
But we are all people.
In a world where the truth wears many masks,
And justice is buried beneath unasked tasks,
When questions go unanswered,
A kneeling stance,
Met with silence and angry chants.
They say we’re equal, but power sways,
Still marching through Jim Crow’s maze.
Yet the soul of the matter stays out of sight.
But we are all people.
A mother weeps in her cell,
While her child learns not to rebel.
The color of skin writes the fate of a man,
Before the court, before the stand.
They must forget — we are all people.
Voices rise through static and spin,
Fighting the war no one wants to begin.
Poets and prophets, teachers and youth,
The hate they spew is so far from the truth.
Those in the prisons — warehoused, unseen,
Stripped of their futures by a system unclean.
Locked not just by bars, but by hate and design,
Serving time for society’s crime.
But we are all people.
We fight,
We struggle,
We yell,
We cry,
They silence love with laws and chains,
Erase our joy, ignore our pains.
But we are, in fact, all people.
Policies, practices, and institutions not aligned,
Our values shift as our rights decline.
Pledges of progress fading from sight,
Signs held high with trembling hands,
Hearts defiant in steady beats,
Ladies and gentlemen of the House and Senate
Please take your seats.
On their mighty thrones and high horses,
A hollow pledge, a masked display,
Silence spreads like choking sand,
They swore to serve with open hand,
No space for they, no line for trans.
Erased by forms both cold and slick,
But they don’t see us all as people.
They turn back time on rights once won,
Their shields ready and fingers on the gun.
A body’s choice, a life denied —
While justice weeps,
America is where your hate comes alive,
and freedoms fracture, starve, and die.
In angry screams, we yell —
We are all people.
