I just read a story
and it really made me feel,
a rage so cold yet hot,
my skin could slice through steel.
Oh, why must I feel?
The pain tears through my heart.
It hurts too much to hurt.
When does the healing start?
The jails are overcrowded
with those who look like me.
And it is all done by design
by those who refuse to see
that their hatred plays a part
in why this scheme of theirs won’t end
until we are dead and on a cart,
with yet another funeral to attend.
I cannot make you care.
Hell! I’m too tired to try.
I’d be wasting precious time
because you want us all to die.
I look evil in its face
every time I look at you.
And I hope there’ll come a day
when you will get what’s due.
I don’t believe in god,
nor will prayer help at all
since you sit up in a church
and yet, still heed hatred’s call.
What part don’t you get
that I can’t change my skin?
What did I ever do to you
to make my death cause you to grin?
I am talking to a wall,
of this, I am in no doubt.
But you see, I might explode
and when I do, I’m a take you out.
I know that I’ll not survive
and I have no problem with that.
But one of these days,
I’m gonna lay your ass out flat!
When you least expect me,
I’ll be lying in wait for you.
And that day is gonna come
just as sure as the sky is blue.
Please don’t take me seriously.
I want the element of surprise
when I shove lead up your ass,
I guess then, you’ll recognize!
Written by,
Shelby I. Courtland
©2016 Shelby I. Courtland
The tragic situation involving Abdi comes as Black Lives Matter has gained traction in Canada too, especially in light of outrage over recent police killings in the U.S. of Alton Sterling, Philando Castile as well as last week’s shooting of Charles Kinsey, who had his hands up and was providing assistance to an autistic man.
https://colouredjustice.wordpress.com/2016/07/29/the-story-that-sent-me-to-jail-juvenile-justice/
NEW YORK — I am writing this from inside a jail cell. I was put here for doing an unremarkable, routine bit of journalism, covering a sentencing in a murder. I won’t go so far as to say I was arrested since I was never read any rights. I am in the cell just the same.
Unfortunately, to be continued……..
shelbycourtland 
I too lost faith in God, each one had to fight their own battle!
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*has to
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Exactly Rekha! Many people think that some ‘god’ is going to make everything alright if only they will pray times too numerous to count. The uselessness of prayer seems to be lost on them. How many people suggest that we pray for the victims of senseless violence or for those who are dying of horrifying diseases and the list is endless? As you say, we must fight our own battles since there is most definitely not some unseen, all knowing deity that’s sitting somewhere answering ‘prayers’.
Thank you for your comment Rekha.
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Another powerfully penned, heartfelt poem. Change is coming, albeit very slowly.
Shelby have you seen this vid, this guy makes a lot of sense:
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Thank you for the compliment on this one 1EarthUnited. It is much appreciated.
LOL! Dude in the video was a riot. I laughed my ass off, literally! Now, I can get behind much of what dude said and I’ve pretty much said the same things dude has except I disagree with him when he refers to BLACKLIVESMATTER, ‘allegedly’ telling the whites to get in the back of protest lines so as to put Blacks first since it is about Black lives that are supposed to matter. I think if white folks truly believed that Black lives matter, the same as their lives do, we would not see gentrification of formerly Black neighborhoods, mass underemployment of Black people, mass incarceration of Black people, Black children caught up in the school-to-prison pipeline, Black child poverty that’s off the scale, unprecedented numbers of Black children drinking toxic water and whites knew about that, off-the-charts racial profiling of Black people so that cities can fill their coffers from ticketing Black folks for seatbelt violations and wrong turn signal lane changes and the like. And in this video, dude gives KKKops more credit than they deserve because racial profiling does exist and there’s no getting around that. So, dude and I disagree on that racist KKKops aren’t a problem because they are, most definitely so!
Another thing I disagree with dude on is that he claims that ‘white privilege’ does not exist when that is a definite lie. If white privilege did not exist, KKKops would be pulling over whites just as much as they are pulling over Black people for seatbelt violations and the like and that is simply not happening. Statistics prove that whites use more illicit drugs than Black people do, but who is behind bars for drugs? Not the whites, that’s for sure. White privilege exits because whites privileged themselves when they stole this land from the Indians, had our ancestors build it up and still they own the choicest land and property, whites own damn near every mortgage company or banking institution. They control the food supply, pharmaceuticals; everything from housing to medicine to food to education. And they denigrate Black people for having little or nothing to show for our existence when I don’t see how anything else could be possible seeing as how we come from people who themselves, were owned. And unless we know how to sing real good, play pro sports and the like, we cannot compete in living situations with the whites. And the upper middle class basically consists of doctors and lawyers and the like and those who work for the feds and state governments make up the middle class. Everyone else is working minimum wage jobs in retail and the fast food industry and are barely scraping by. This is just my assessment, of course.
But I did like the fact that dude stated that you cannot effect change by just going around yelling and screaming that “BLACKLIVESMATTER!” He likened it to someone screaming all the time that, “Shit tastes good!” You are not going to make people believe that. I have seen not one positive thing that BLACKLIVESMATTER has done to promote that hashtag; quite the opposite in fact. You can scream at me all day and all night that “Black lives matter,” but if they never mattered to me, they’re just not gonna. The people need to make their lives matter to them because as bad as Black people have it, we still manage to run through over a trillion dollars a year and what we have to show for that is very little. We don’t invest in our own communities; what few are left, that is. Some things, we should do for ourselves, but we cannot do it all and that is a fact.
But, dude and I do agree that the group BLACKLIVESMATTER is irrelevant and in my opinion is doing more harm than good. And I don’t believe that they are taken as seriously as they think they are. And their agenda certainly does not mesh with any agenda other than to promote the gay lifestyle and with George Soros financing it, I have no understanding of why Black lives would matter to a Hungarian billionaire. If he really thought that, then he could start up some affordable housing developments in low-income areas and add to them, grocery stores, pharmacies and the like. But to just fund a group to shout to all and sundry that “BLACKLIVESMATTER!” is just way too easy a route to take if you really believe that.
1EarthUnited, again, I thank you for your comment!
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Babe you take my breath away with your literary power and influence. A lot of “God” subscribing folks are too quick to hold God up as a reason for their stagnation to be a part of change while God has put them here as an instrument to promote change. To those folks I send a reminder – God threw an angel out of hell who we know as the devil.
We can’t afford to make God “fit” where it’s convenient to compensate for our own cowardice. I don’t see God co-signing such a sell out.
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Once again Geo Gee, you have put me to the blush with your words of praise for this one! At one point in time, I was a Sunday School teacher, knew the Bible by heart from one end to the other and can still recall to mind many chapters and verses, but I grew disenchanted with mainstream religion when I saw the blatant hypocrisy displayed by so many so-called Christians. People were denied access to the church and to services of the church if they lost their job and were too poor to pay their tithes. How church members and leaders of the church can look themselves in the mirror after what they do to people who they consider to be beneath them, I don’t know. Just as racists will sit down in a church and pretend to worship and hear the word of God and yet, look on another whose skin color is different and kill him/her because of something that they have no control over.
People use ‘religion’ when it suits them and throw it away when it doesn’t. They will take money from people in any way they can in order for them to live a lavish lifestyle and their flock is so brainwashed, they do as told because this reverend or that pastor is promising them a reward of heavenly paradise. And look at all the wars that have been fought over different religions and it continues to this day. Christians against Muslims and sects of Christians against other sects.
Don’t get me started on this because as you can see, I could go on and on. But I’ll stop right here and again, thank you for that most wonderful compliment on this one. Your input is always greatly valued!
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Shelby, I’m way late as usual, but thank you for this stunning post. With all you’re going through, I hope you can keep writing, you do have a gift! – Linda
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Linda, I am just beaming thanks to your wonderful compliment on this one! I am over the moon! You know that to many people, I am just too much to take, but I am going to be me and I write from my heart! And I thank you so much for recognizing that! I will try to keep this up as much as I can! Because even though I was no longer writing for several weeks, when I finally got back in here, I noticed that a few more folks had signed on to ‘follow’ me and I still had quite the viewership despite being gone for awhile. So, I guess some people can find something of interest in what I write. And that, in a way, makes it worth it when I get all bent out of shape and go on a raging inferno tidal wave! LOL!
Again, I thank you most sincerely!!!! You made my day!
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And you in turn have made my day more than I could count! I appreciate your kind words, good heart, and great work! Too much to take? Not a bit of it!
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Linda, you are the heart and soul of this universe and without you, we should surely be lost! And these are not trite words! They are straight from my heart!
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