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A Poem for Oscar: Everybody Knows About Oakland, Goddam!

Posted on July 9, 2010
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By Jill McLaughlin

 
A Twisted verdict came down today
 
Goddam it takes my breath away
 
And What that jury really meant to say
 
"Shoot a Black for free, you don’t gotta pay"
 
I read somewhere as the cops pulled them from the train
 
Oscar called to people, "Ya all be cool"
 
He wasn’t gonna play their fool
 
But see they don’t teach you in school
 
if Black in America it don’t matter what you’re doing
 
you can be loud, you can be quiet, you can be walking, you can be
 
working,  you can be poor, you can be doing alright for yourself, you can
 
be a Harvard professor, you can be a radical, you can be running, you
 
can be funning, you can be sleeping
 
all you’re really good for is a jail cell or police shooting
 
I can hear Oscar’s ancestors crying, hear Sean’s and Aiyana’s too
 
long history of toiling and dying, moments of really living too few.
 
A woman sang it best back then about Alabama, Tennessee and 
 
Mississippi.
 
Tonight it’s Oakland goddam, but everybody knows it’s from sea to
 
shining sea. 
 
Goddam 
 

3 thoughts on “A Poem for Oscar: Everybody Knows About Oakland, Goddam!”

  1. Geoyce says:
    July 11, 2010 at 3:53 pm

    A white police officer here in the Toledo area shot a white male in the back and paralyzed him. He got jail time. A white female police officer shot a black female who was mentally I\’ll and killed her. She was cleared. Yet, no one sees racism at play. Amazing!

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  2. j says:
    July 11, 2010 at 3:34 pm

    @superstar
    So you think shooting unarmed Black men is Ok? That’s pretty twisted thinking on your part…and just the kind of thinking that perpetuates this kind of murderous racism and allows this system to get away with these kinds of crimes.

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  3. Superstar says:
    July 10, 2010 at 1:53 pm

    The police officer should get a medal for shooting that drug dealer piece of shit. At least the rent-a-protesters got some looting in though right?

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