April Is National Poetry Month!
JUSTICE AND JIVE
(A History Poem of American Justice)
Attribution: CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT ARCHIVE
MARGARET BLOCK
POET X CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST X FORMER MEMBER OF SNCC
Justice wasn't in America's plan when they took away the Indian Nation's land,
Like the Arapahoe, the Apache, the Cherokee, the Choctaw, the Navajo and many more.
Was it a just plan when you banished them to an isolated land
And infected them with smallpox and hives, you just knew that they wouldn't survive
These injustices can never be justified,
You call it Justice, but it's just another word for Jive.
Where was Justice when slavery abounded,
Perhaps she was helping Old Master keep Swobo's nose to the ground.
They took away his children, his culture, his language and his identity
but they could not take his dignity.
Madame Justice, you can't hide, we charge you with genocide.
You call it Justice but it's just another word for Jive.
Justice was nowhere around when all of the lynchings were going down.
The Klan strung us up and didn't try to hide
Because they knew that Justice wasn't on our side,
When Billie Holliday sang "Strange Fruit," she was singing about dead bodies hanging from a poplar tree.
She could have been singing about you or me.
She knew that justice would never preside,
You call it Justice but Billie called it Jive.
Justice comes with a dollar sign although justice is supposed to be blind.
I can't buy Justice and pay my rent. I make minimum wage with no benefits.
It seems to me that Justice is only for the rich.
If you don't have money Justice will be denied.
You call it Justice but it's just another word for Jive.
If Justice is really color blind then why are so many black and brown brothers doing time?
You lock them up on some homemade facts but that was always your plan of attack.
Langston Hughes once said that justice is a blind goddess to whom we blacks are wise,
Her bandage covers two festering sores that once perhaps were eyes.
You call it Justice but Langston called it Jive.
Madame Justice must be really tired.
She's permitting the cops to do black profiles,
they watch us and stop us for no good reason.
We feel like sitting ducks during hunting season.
It's about time for Justice to be on our side.
You call it Justice, but it's just another word for Jive.
Mr. President, if Justice was really intact, then why did you create the Patriot Act?
Your homeland security is an injustice in disguise
but Mr. Bush, unlike Justice, we're not blind. We all have eyes.
You call it justice but it's just another word for Jive.
Now Mrs. Bush, Justice had to have been deaf, mute and blind
when you helped create No Child Left Behind.
You're setting children up for a great big fall.
Mrs. Bush, an injustice to one is an injustice to all.
Justice should be on the children's side.
You call it Justice, but even the children know it's Jive.
Where was Justice when Katrina went down?
Perhaps she was hiding out with the FEMA director, that incompetent Michael Brown.
The people at the Superdome sent up a prayer in hopes that FEMA
would soon be there but Bush and Brown really didn't care.
They wished that they all had just floated away while they plotted and
lied and created an inexcusable delay, but someone once said that
Justice delayed is Justice denied.
You call it Justice, but we can all recognize Jive.
