Will I Ever Be The Same?

I’m wondering if it will ever change? The year is 2020 but we are still fighting the same thing.

Years of oppression got me screaming to be free. What the hell does this government want from me?

You killed my people, you took their land. You fed them the promise of some fairytale man. 

You stole our culture, took our language too, but when I fight back you say I’m acting the fool. 

Our people are dying each and every day, just because your laws tell us we have to do things your way. 

The control you reign scares the hell outta me, the lengths you go to to show us we are not free. 

You spray our women and children with gas and beat them with sticks, while you wear your big scary masks and don’t have to breathe that shit. 

Our kids in cages being raped everyday, me trying to teach my kid “baby this isn’t the way.”

Crying every night for the people you’ve killed, all in the name of (freedom) and putting your flag on a hill. 

We’ve never been free since you came in your boats. The Trail of Tears you watched us die after we helped you and your families to survive. 

Native children were forcibly sent to residential schools where they were subjected to rape, assault and death.

You would have died if we didn’t teach you how to survive on our land, so why twist your history books and call us savages?

You turned us into puppets when your black book came, we follow your commandments that you break every day. 

Church and state they are one and the same.

But guess what, I’ll fight your control every day, my dead spirit will never enter your heaven’s gate…

EVERYTHING, Everything is different. I no longer feel the same. I see the same people but now that I see their true character my view of them has changed.

A mirage – a time before 2020 when it seemed you saw us as equal.  Now it seems like a Civil Rights Movement sequel. 

There’s no way I can when it’s such a breach of trust, knowing people hate you because you’re not “one of us.”

The deaths, the hate, is it made just to humiliate? Will it keep you from your heaven’s gate? 

Your black book says one thing but your words speak your truth. 

Never would have known that’s how you truly feel if it wasn’t for the “book” that makes you so brave. 

The words you type got me feeling some kind of way. 

The mask you had in place had me fooled for a time. What do I tell my kid when he says “momma isn’t that your friend?” 

Do I tell the truth of what it really is? 

March on Washington.

That you hate both of us now because of the color of our skin.

The battles that you’re fighting for a government full of crooks, you think you’re better than me so you partook.

In the government’s eyes we are all below them. If black, brown, yellow and white all came together we could all win. 

We are just here to make that green paper that divides and controls our lives. You teach your children in history classes blatant lies. 

We fight with other countries and take what they got, just to make it seem like we are the big dogs on the block. 

We aren’t so great, in your heart you know it’s true. We’ll never be great until my people are considered equal to you. 

The lies are unfolding for all of you to see the truth of what we were saying, but you still wanna blame me?

Because you think we are different, but we really are the same.

Only difference is the color of our face. 

We see how our colors scare you, the way you cross to the other side of the street or clutch your purse to your side. 

You call the cops, you know they will take your side. 

But you see we wouldn’t rob or hurt you, we are like you, just trying to survive. 

But when your badged thugs come to your aid for the smells from my grill, you will stand by and watch me die all because of preconceived notions you feel. 

We really do bleed the same. 

We never would do what you think we do everyday, but one thing you can be sure of, we won’t bow down at your feet. You envision us as weak. 

I think I was almost beat when I felt your knee on his neck. 

I didn’t know I was watching what would be his last breath. 

I wasn’t sure what I was seeing so I had to back up. 

I knew when I saw his urine run under that truck. 

He cried for his momma and that woke me up.

I got off my knees and screamed “what the fuck?”

Did I just watch you kill an unarmed man, like it was your right? All because you see him as a threat, is he a threat because he’s not White? 

You don’t value life, you don’t really care. 

All the while you tell us you treat us fair. 

That’s the day I woke to see your laws and funds are made to kill, even in our sleep. 

I won’t be scared. I’ll fight your control so my son and my people can finally be free. 

Jane “Eagle Heart” Jacobs is a North Carolina native who trys to help keep her Native American culture alive. She is a mother and a human rights and environmental activist.