Can't [Not] Be...

Source: here

© 8 August 2013, the Griot Poet

I can't not be your boogeyman,
When your self-esteem is fashioned
Around me accepting
Second or third-class citizen status.

I can't not be your boogeyman,
When your echo chambers are fashioned
By bloviating college non-graduates
Treating others' histories like they never happened.

I can't not be your boogeyman,
When merely my entrance on elevators
Elicit stares of fear, dread and shifted purses; staring at automatic doors;
Michael Jordan and Eddie Murphy treated to the [urban legend] buffoonery when requesting a
floor.

I can't not be your boogeyman,
Levar Burton has his own ritual
With the police that was obviously amiss
When NYPD stopped their plain-clothes police chief in a back-in-the-day "stop-and-frisk."
(No Christmas bonuses)

I can't not be your boogeyman,
When store detectives piled me
Bodily into a wall of toys
While he turned blind eye to four pairs of
Keds walking out on their "own" (4 white kids feet)
'Cause he *knows* NIGRAS steal!

I can't not be your boogeyman,
When you know George Zimmerman
On a first-name basis on an impartial jury
Of his peers with visits by B37's lawyer husband,
Manicures, pedicures, massages; movies
NY agent book deals
Dependent on but one outcome.

I can't not be your boogeyman,
When one out of 44
Causes some of you to lose your minds and common sense:
2.3% isn't statistically significant,
Everything in probability and physics
Tells us there's no such thing as 100% efficiency.
(That is perpetual motion - real or political - and violates the Law of Entropy)

I can't not be your boogeyman,
I will not put my hand on a burning aisle
And hope you crisp;
I will not drink the same poisonous vitriol
And hope you succumb to death's grip:

I will extend my open hand
As our ancestor's evolved the handshake
To represent no weapons and our shared fate:

"For he has made man of ONE BLOOD..."*

The choice is yours; karma pays in full
Because, you see

I can't not be your boogeyman!

*Acts 17:26 NKJV - "And He has made from ONE BLOOD every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,..."