See The Hate, Feel The Hate

I see your hate I hear your hate I think your hate
I see your hypocrisy I hear your hypocrisy 
I think I might just embrace your hypocrisy
That selective ability to be prejudicial, racist, hateful
And be applauded for it by the media

I look in a mirror and I see my own pale scarred white skin
I look in a mirror and I see my own pale blue eyes
I look in a mirror and I see my own masculinity

There was a time I looked in that mirror and I saw
 The same features that men who discovered 
Life-saving vaccines shared
 The same features that men who had brought 
Life-giving water to the wastelands shared
 The same features that men who brought 
The rule of law to the tyrants who ruled by the sword shared
 The same features that men who put 
The safety of others first shared
 The same features that men who swore to uphold 
The rights of others shared
 The same features that men who defended 
The weak and disabled shared

Driving home one cold night I saw a white male state trooper   Changing a tire
On a car belonging to a young woman 
 Stranded on the side of the highway
And I caught myself thinking
 "Don't do it, she hates you"

Read the back pages of your local paper and you may see
 Articles about white male policemen 
Being murdered responding to a call
 There have been three killed in the past few weeks
In Texas
 In South Carolina
In Florida

No headlines for these men, no outrage from the public

Hard to stop myself from thinking
 "Stop responding to those calls. 
Stop trying to protect those that hate you."

It feels like my eyes have been ripped wide open
 Do they hate me and everyone who looks like me
Do they want only to hurt me and all who look like me
 Do they only want to see me and all who look like me 
Die

Are they my enemy

Have they actually won
 Have they convinced me that I myself am the Devil
Not the child of a woman who desired that I                                         Grow to be a man who gives
But the spawn of a Demon who only wanted me to take 
 And take and take and take
Have they seen through a clever disguise I was 
 Unwittingly wearing
That I now need to shed as unnecessary

Should I no longer
 Offer my strength 
Should I no longer
 Offer my words of encouragement
Should I 
 Embrace the practices of these practitioners of hate

And damn them wholesale with every statement I make