day ONE HUNDRED and NINETY EIGHT

the juice

o.j. is getting paroled

o.j. wants mojitos and golf

i remember it was october 1995

i was on a 77B bus

heading back to my home

from my college campus

when i heard the news.

people had a transistor radios going

back then

and when the verdict was read some folks cheered

i wasn't of liberty then

and i'm certainly not of liberty now

to judge people on their reactions

at the age of 21 i was well aware

that the united states system of law and order

of government

worked for only some people

....and 22 years later the shit is still the same

if i was black and on that bus

i probably would’ve cheered too

but if i were a woman?

so what we talk about when we talk about o.j. in america is race

we talk about hundreds of years of slavery

of the most brutal kind

of rapes.

of families being torn apart.

of a bogus emancipation proclamation.

of andrew johnson not doing squat for reconstruction.

of almost one hundred years of jim crow

of lynching

of colored water fountains and entrances

of lunch counters, water hoses, marches and assassinations

of the war on drugs

of reagan’s welfare mothers

of mass incarcerations

of the united states’ unwillingness

to pay reparations to black americans

for the sins of the nation

all the way up to the election of donald trump

and his racist world view

his racist attorney general

who wants to start a new wave of suppression all over again

alt-right cronies

and pepe the frog

58% of white people voted for trump

white people still have their fucking heads

buried in the sand on race

that's what we're talking about when we talk about o.j.

we talk about nothing

because we don’t talk in america

we just hoist flags

throw up slogans

and hate each other to our rotted core

so let’s just have mojitos

and play a round of golf instead.

--John Grochalski