Trading Races

“When you have only ever experienced privilege, equality feels like oppression.” ― Adam Rutherford

Here’s Karen, captured from a foreign realm,
stacked in a leaky vessel through a storm
where all the crew, from cargo hold to helm,
were black and bold, the undisputed norm.

She’s told to buckle down and never whine
about the weight of sorrow on her back
from stolen heritage. “What’s yours is mine,”
they say, “we’ve set you on an equal track.”

But drowning in an ocean fraught with tears
or stranded in a desert parched with thirst,
the vestige of oppression through the years
can never fade until the tide’s reversed.

Why should it threaten them if she demands
a sign that someone sees and understands?

2020 Mary Boren
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Reap the Whirlwind

“My daddy changed the world.” Gianna Floyd,
at only six, already understands
that something monumental has occurred.
She joins the ranks of children left to bear
the burden of a murderous design
infused into the bedrock of our nation.

Four hundred years of history reveal
the willful subjugation of a line
of people who, despite the barricades,
survive in force to raise a mighty roar
that shatters all illusion. We must stand
in truth to finalize emancipation.

No longer will the platitudes suffice
nor “thoughts and prayers” assuage an open wound.
The time for reckoning is NOW, the day
will soon give way to dusk, the moment lost
forever if denial perseveres.
The case demands authentic reparation.


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2020 Mary Boren
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Pride and Privilege

“Don’t tear that statue down! It represents
my heritage.” The Civil War still rages.
Although it ended, losers ever since
have sabotaged the bleak and bloody pages
of history. The altered facts we swallowed
have been exposed to light and judged a ruse
to whitewash the atrocities that followed.

The symbols we so carelessly confuse
with patriotic zeal across the board
from founding days are neither right nor good —
they’re remnants of a past to be abhorred
by those “endowed” with three-fifths personhood.

And liberty is just an empty word
until each citizen is seen and heard.

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Mary Boren, 2017
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Photo source and more info on the history of confederate statues

Silence is Betrayal

“There comes a time when silence is betrayal.”
The words of Doctor Martin Luther King
hang heavy in the air. Intentions fail
to halt the arc of hatred’s brutal swing.

The centuries of organized oppression
are coming to a climax. You and I
must take a stand for justice. Shy discretion
is not a virtue when the stakes are high.

As hard-won rights are carelessly dismantled
before our eyes, the growing battle zone
erupting in the streets cannot be handled
with slacktivism. None should march alone.

Resisting with a vengeance, beat the drum
and shout in unison, “The time has come!”

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2017 Mary Boren
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To the Wrong Texas Right

There’s a sinister threat to freedom,
       prosperity and peace
that is slithering through the tunnels
       in legislative grease.

From a platform that’s built on hatred
       and ignorant “righteous” rage,
you have sullied the Lone Star emblem
       across the global stage.

Running rampant beneath the mantle
       of Christianity,
it’s a mission of undermining
       the thread of sanity
hanging limp in the minds of voters
       confused by the disguise
who are filling their veins with venom
       and rallying to your lies.

While slaughtering education
       and help for the old and poor
and labeling gender nature
       a condition in need of “cure,”
you spit in the face of Jesus
       and mock his model of
the worth of a life that’s rooted
       in charity and love.

But we are the sons and daughters
       of heroes who’d never let
fanatics dishonor Texas,
       and we have not spoken yet.

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2014 Mary Boren
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In the style of “The Secret People“, by G. K. Chesterton