My Dreams Of A Different Mother! (Re-post)

My mother is a junkie, strung out on crack-cocaine.
I don’t know who my father is; my mom thinks it was Shane.

My brothers, John and Jack, I am raising on my own.
I am only nine years old but I am often home alone.

What I wouldn’t give for a mother not like mine;
one who doesn’t work the streets or smells like sour wine.

I know she’s out there somewhere and not just in my dreams.
She tucks me in at night and quiets my nightmare screams.

But for me, it’s gangs and drugs and poverty in the hood.
I’ll probably die a horrible death, and I would change things if I could.

I don’t make the rules of law and those who do don’t care.
They punish me for trying to live, the cops are everywhere.

When I came into this world, I was born to a junkie whore.
And those who think I’m worthless, every one of them knows the score.

I will never get to grow up or make something of myself.
My dreams of a different mother, I’ve placed high upon a shelf.

So when I am on the news for getting shot for stealing bread,
you’ll just say that I’m a thug and you’ll be glad that I am dead.

Written by,
Shelby I. Courtland
©2015 Shelby I. Courtland

I tweaked this one a bit because I felt the need to re-post it since lately the emphasis has been placed on the supposedly outrageous numbers of white people who have become addicted to heroin and who are overdosing and dying. There has been calls for action from the CDC to members of congress to urgently address this problem and yet, when crack was introduced into inner cities decades ago, no one saw a problem. The ‘War on Drugs’ was declared and many, many Black people were locked up for their crack addiction and certainly, the CDC did not get onboard and neither did members of congress. This is glaringly hypocritical of how whites who are addicted to street drugs are treated over Black people. Once again, there are two AmeriKKKas; the white privileged one and the one that deals harshly with Black people.

Our children are born to addicts who are arrested for being addicts while white folks just need some understanding and some intervention before their lives spiral down into death. How many Black people have died thanks in part to the crack epidemic? Who cares? Certainly not the ‘white’ establishment.

Drug addiction is not a Black or white issue, but it is being made so by the difference in what happens to Black addicts as opposed to white ones. If drug addiction knows no color, creed, race or gender, then neither should the way addiction is treated. Well, I for one am not going to let this hypocrisy slide. Black lives will not be made valueless on MY watch; not a bit of it. Our children and families are important to us and we shed tears of frustration, anger and resentment over the harshness of the laws that were put into place to deny addicts of crack, rehab and other forms of intervention as opposed to their incarceration for drug crimes.

I intend to continue to shed a spotlight on how the response from politicians and medical institutions handle the situation differently when ‘white’s become addicted to drugs as opposed to the lack of any response from these same entities when Black people become addicted to drugs.

AmeriKKKa, your filthy and funky ass hypocrisy petticoat is showing. And I intend to expose it for ALL the world to see!