Put yo hands up
Put yo hands up
Everybody out there put yo hands up
10 shots
6 hit
4 missed
1 unarmed black boy
My brothers are being gunned down in the streets
instead of strung up by trees
but still left out there all day and night
to inflict fear in everyone who sees
Just because the uniforms are blue instead of white
and they wear badges instead of hoods
doesn’t mean they’re here to help us
what made you think they ever would?
14 Emmett Till
17 Trayvon Martin
18 Michael Brown
19 Renisha McBride
They had families to go home to just like me and you
Future ahead of them things they wanted to do
but their lives, cut short, put a pin in it
because we live in a world where they are undervalued
even if they tried to blend their skin didn’t
Don’t shoot
Don’t shoot
Don’t shoot
I WANT TO GROW UP
I can hear the echoes of them begging for their life
someone said he had a gun, someone said he saw a knife
he say, she say, he shot, he died
Now the media is spreading a bunch of rumors and lies
Cop said he was afraid the boy tried to attack
Never mind that he was unarmed
and could do the cop no harm
guess he was afraid cuz the boy was black
Safe?
Safe?
Who’s safe?
I return to a campus full of students oblivious to my existence
clueless of the fact that my brothers and sisters are becoming extinct
I guess a lunch conversation about racism in America would be too real to water down with your drink
I guess admitting your privilege is too much truth for you to swallow
So ignoring it like ignoring me is the path you chose to follow
But ignorance has never and will never be a choice for me
I guess it’s easier to talk about the wars going on overseas
Instead the one going down in our very own streets.
When I return home that’s what I return to a warzone
I don’t know if in 2017 my parents will be giving me flowers
at my graduation or leaving them at my tombstone
Put yo hands up
Put yo hands up
Everybody out there put yo hands up
10 shots
6 hit
4 missed
1 unarmed black boy
DeDe Curtis PO ’17 is a sociology major from Chicago, Illinois.