Rashad Holloway Jr.

Melanin Motivation: Two Poems

By Rashad Holloway Jr. • Photo by Chris Hartlove

TBIB 2020

The protectors fail to protect us
Failed to serve
At least me
At least my family
My pigment makes a white woman clutch her purse when I go by
All I tried to say was hi
She can turn my greeting into an allegation
Then here come those boys in blue
Those who refuse to live by the truth
They service a government that believes I belong in a cage.
Menace 2 society
To a pig six feet under is where I should be
You step on my brothers necks while gunning down my sisters
You shoot me in my front yard
And claim that my melanin was a sin worthy of death
The nation tells me that I should always fear those boys in blue
Before they leave me black and blue
With a bullet through my chest or a knee to my neck
We’ll always protest for those who have been laid to rest.
Change must come
Our revolution will be won.
Because at any encounter with those boys in blue I send an “I love you” text
Because I know, that I could be next.

Complexion

Misconceptions
The art of Deception
The sad thing is
It’s usually our Perception
I had no Orientation
To life
But to me racism is too small of a thing to
be a problem
For my pen, ink, and my melanin
Are my only complexion

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