We’ve Got a Long Haul, If We Really Want Liberty and Justice for All

by Ernie McCray

“Liberty and Justice for All.”
That just might be America’s biggest lie
of all.
I mean
a young man,
a White teen,
with a rifle
that looks like
an AR-15,
appears on a scene
where people,
in spite
of some folks
acting crazy and obscene,
were peacefully
chanting and singing,
seeking justice
for families
of Black folks
who had been killed
by the police
and this intruder,
who declares
that he was there
“to guard property,”
leaves two people
dead on the street
and when he gets his
“day in court”
he’s set free
because a jury,
in a land where
weapons are idolized,
where the harm they can do
is simplified and trivialized,
watched him whimper
and cry
and claim
to have acted in self-defense
but what this poster boy
for the NRA
and the Second Amendment
and his trial really did was
smash ideals of equality for all citizens
to the pavement,
its fragments
exposing a country’s reluctance
to take justice seriously
because not everyone
has access to
what put this murderer
back in society.
No one of my ethnicity
or other dark skinned human beings
would be walking
the streets
if we
showed up at a rally
openly packing
a gun,
as our days would most likely
be over and done
and if we did make
it to the court system
our “side of the story”
would get the attention
an invisible man
would receive
on a foggy day.
A jury
would declare us “Guilty”
in less than a day
and be on their
merry way.

All this to say
we Americans
have a long haul
if we’re to ever honor:
“Liberty and Justice for All.”