• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Prose of a Con

Poetry and Prose by Russell Wardlow

  • Home
  • About
  • Prose
    • Culture
    • Inside
    • Love
    • Mercy
    • Spirit
    • Trauma
  • Listen
  • News
  • Connect
  • Support

America is Great

April 22, 2021 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

America
Is
Great
be-cauuuuuuse
America is Great at innovating new ways to oppress and suppress black people each new generation
America is Great at blinding the eyes of most of its citizens to the actual iniquities, inequities, and inequalities of its black and lower-income population, making them believe that these things do not exist and all are given equal opportunity that some choose to capitalize upon and others choose not to
America is Great at turning a blind eye to privilege, nationalism, and white supremacy, while reacting with the full force of the law and military to the gatherings, protests, and pleas of civil rights
America is Great at picking justice at opportune times when the whole world is looking, giving the illusion of both an unjust system and process working, and a country on the flux of systemical change that works for its darkest citizens as much as its lightest
America is Great at working with a headstart, covering up the trails of injustices and generation plight left unacknowledged and unaccounted for
America is Great at spoon-feeding, taking its time handing out rights one and at time
America is Great at replacing rhetoric to guise the steady condition it places upon its black citizens that it and other citizens profit from
America is Great at criminalizing and over-policing its black citizens
America is Great at canceling the voices of black people yet censoring cancel culture
America is Great at abstaining from accountability
America is Great at being late
America is Great at having its hands forced but slowing its steps for anything that it does not profit from
America is Great at changing after black bodies pile up
America is Great for who if not me?
am I not American?
is the success of individuals here and there within the few in a group, indicative of opportunity as the greater many still suffer from democracy’s failures to them?
America was Great because the whole world tuned in
and yet it still isn’t Great at changing comprehensive legislation to make accountability a landmark of justice
America is Great at not being Great to me
what about you?
America is Great at being Great to a chosen few
America is Great at having two sides
and I am one of but the many,
that are victim to your Bipolar Greatness
the Shade of your Greatness blankets my existence
but the sun casts its shadow
and so I guess I must find Greatness in the shade of your shadow
hoping to know the light of your acclaimed Greatness for more than an instance
so I too can say,
America
Is
Great

Filed Under: Culture

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Prose of a Con

Prose of a Con is a collection of Russell Wardlow’s prose and poetry written entirely behind bars. Through writings on family, spirituality, freedom, love, justice, redemption, and vulnerability, Russell seeks to show the humanity and hope of individuals like himself who are incarcerated.

Read More

  • Whose Mind is it Anyway June 30, 2022
  • Objects June 30, 2022
  • Same Thang, Different Name June 30, 2022
  • Optical Ill-lusions June 30, 2022
  • Hollow Symbols June 30, 2022

Themes

  • Culture
  • Inside
  • Love
  • Mercy
  • Spirit
  • Trauma
  • Uncategorized

Footer

Prose of a Con

Prose of a Con is sponsored by giveabeat.org

  • Instagram

Navigation

  • Home
  • About
  • Prose
  • Listen
  • News
  • Connect
  • Support

Themes

  • Culture
  • Inside
  • Love
  • Mercy
  • Spirit
  • Trauma
  • Uncategorized

Prose of a Con © 2023 · web design by Studio Lyko