I had scribbled this down on scratch paper not long after George Floyd’s death. It seems like there will always be something happening in our country that makes it relevant to talk about systematic racial injustice. Maybe someday it will be history (that we are allowed to teach) rather than headlines and internet chatter. I hope. I always hope.
You protest.
You protest for your right to protest.
But to take a knee is a bridge too far.
You claim that fascism impedes your freedom.
I’m sorry you can’t breathe with a mask on your face.
Try breathing with a knee on your neck.
Why do four white police have the right to kneel?
George.
Ahmaud.
Kaepernick.
“Obamagate.”
His only crime was his color.
I want you to say it out loud
Because your actions are killing.
Your ignorance is killing.
Your whiteness lets you claim “this is America” to let you
Get away with murder in the name of freedom.
Don’t you know there’s a fascist knee on your neck, too?
You kneel to the god of capitalism
And insist on the right to life.
Inconvenience is not infringement.
Discomfort is not oppression.
But I guess even a pebble in your shoe is intolerable
When you were born with everything.
Born looking down, you’ll never know what it means to have to hope.
It’s not a jackbooted foot or a knee in dress blues that holds you down,
It’s a dress shoe covering bone spurs and gout.
No wonder you can’t see the knee on your neck.
Your vision is based on color.
Maybe one day we’ll learn to look to the side—
To see everyone on a lateral plane.
Not up, not down,
Not worry who’s right or left.
When we clamor to be on top,
Someone’s always on the bottom.
Tag: hope
A great deal has changed since I last posted. It seems as though a lifetime has passed. We are living in very different times than we were even a year ago.
I also now have a son. He is nearly a year and a half now. That reality amplifies everything.
As with many other things on the erstwhile to-do list, the book series I have been so excited about for quite some time has taken a back burner. It is difficult to find the mental, emotional, and physical energy to write–especially dystopian middle-grade fiction–when your heart is weighed down by the things happening in our country every day.
All the more reason it is important to keep creating.
Meanwhile, I thought I should come here to let you know that I still have every intention of writing this book series. I intend to keep making things that will hopefully be meaningful to someone, someday, on some level. I have come here to let you know that I am still here, hoping that words matter, hoping that hope matters. And I hope you are still showing up every day, too, even when things feel bleak.
I am doing my best to have faith in the goodness of people. We can’t let the darkness get the better of us. A collective tiredness is palpable, but everyone has something to contribute to the good fight in his own way. We owe it to those who came before us to fight so that their efforts were not in vain, and we owe it to our posterity to carry on a legacy of goodness.
I hope in hindsight we will feel proud of how we responded at this moment in history, however small our efforts seem. Good begets good. Light spreads. Please let this be an encouragement to not let your light grow dim.
In love,
Veronica
© 2025 Veronica Lee Bishop
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑