(Read Down, Not Across)

The High Price of Racism

It was in the street, they gathered                    Both mothers cry, "My baby..."

Two groups, one black, one white,                 Sorrow driving them insane,

Racial slurs were traded and it                        Two families moan and clutch their chest

Turned into a fight                                          Hearts hurting from the pain

It would have stayed just a fight                     A little boy lay motionless

But each group had a gun                              Blood splattered on his back

With triggers pulled by young hands               No reason for his life cut short

Everyone lost, no one won                             Death, just for being black

Two loud shots rang through the air                A little boy, not breathing

Two boys knocked off their feet                     A stiff white sheet, wrapped tight

The crowd now ran and left them                    No reason for his life cut short

Dying in the street                                           Death, just for being white

Ugly words used at each boy's home               Differences that seemed so great

They had marred each generation                    Seem to melt away

And now the words had carried speed            When preachers talk of their young life

To the bullets' penetration                                By the caskets where they lay

Two ambulances on their way                         Bloody streets remind us of two sons

Sounding their alarms                                     Loved and lost

Two mothers watch, two last breaths              Remember too, they tell us of

Sons, dying in their arms                                Racism and it's cost

-Renee Cox