THE DIVIDED STATES OF AMERICA
Hopscotch and Duck Duck Goose
The children play free
Hope and wonder in their eyes
Giggling and running around the nursery
The teacher calms them down
And splits them into groups of three
Giving each child a canvas
With the outline of a flag drawn identically
Each group is given one set of paints
To share like they’d been taught to do
Make the painting look real
Let the colors be true
Must work together
To see the project through
Taking it in turns
To paint the red white and blue
Each painting must be completed
Before the milk is poured and a story is recited
Have to see the big picture
No time to be short sighted
Must be considerate need to patient
Can’t afford to get overexcited
The only way to succeed
Is to work together united
Each and every child managed to complete
From the quiet kids to the class clowns
Children eventually grow and life begins to take hold
Business suits and wedding gowns
Overalls and working boots new children are born
Brand new cities and the same old town
Fighting like dogs in a rat race
Turning the flag they once painted upside down
They say we’re in this together
Too many people like forgotten flecks
Broken off from the whole
Cast aside like jokers in a 52 card deck
Dreams of equality
Taking a vicious reality check
Another white racist cop
With his knee on a black man’s neck
1619, 1793, 1831 and 1861
1865, 1869, 1909 and 1916
1941, 1954, 1955 and the sixties
The 1960s
’78, ’92, ’95, ’08 and 2020
And every day in between each of these dates
Land of the free
Remembering that freedom has always had to wait
If it’s in God we trust and God is love
Why is it so easy to hate?
Hand in hand supposed to stand united
Welcome to America’s Divided States
Don’t walk out on me yet
Truth can hurt but lies infect
Especially when the lies are spoken
By the politicians we elect
I don’t think people need much
Some love and mutual respect
Not another racist motherfucker
Hiding behind serve and protect
Sick of injustice
Feel like we’ve turned back the clock
Another black man shot or suffocated
Another warrant served with no knock
Malcolm X in his wisdom once said
“We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock
Plymouth Rock landed on us”
The government made tea out of hemlock
Eric Garner, Michael Brown and Tamir Rice
Too many people needlessly deceased
Walter Scott, Alton Stirling and Philando Castile
Dead by the hands of the police
Stephon Clarke, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd
People all over the world took to their knees
United people marched through the streets
Trying to protest and demonstrate in peace
From Australia to England
From Hollywood to Times Square
Wanting to show unity and togetherness
Needing to make people aware
Rubber bullets fired into a crowd
Tear gas filling the air
All the mace in the world
Couldn’t create more tears than the tears already there
Speaking out and speaking loud
No more voice left to become hoarse
Trying to speak wanting to talk
But the President was ready to endorse
The police to react
With all their excessive force
Igniting the flames and fueling the fire
From the safety of his Mar-a-Lago golf course
Contaminated by Agent Orange
A sickness making the world ill
A pretend President wanting to devour us all
Left in the belly of the beast like forgotten krill
Before the door would lock behind him
He had another act of ill will
Sent all of his followers
To storm Capitol Hill
Intruders smashed the windows
Broke into offices and scaled the walls
Unlike the peaceful protests
There seemed to be no police at all
When it was time for the angry white people
To charge through the National Mall
It’s taken so long just to walk
But it seems we still don’t know how to crawl
I’m painting a flag on a canvas
Sharing my paint and it’s getting late
But the time has to be now
No time to waste while we wait
If God is great and God is love
Why is it so easy to hate?
Hand in hand want to stand united
Welcome to America’s Divided States
