The Execution Will Now Be Televised for Your Viewing Pleasure

Don your finest suit and frilly peach dress that will drape over your cotton knickers and wife beaters

Wax your teeth and rinse out the stench from your tobacco, whiskey stained orifice

Lather your underarms so they won't smell your excitement mustering

Mama and Papa taught in good faith that it is best to never attend a lynching on an empty stomach

So you and the family dine in ritual, bathing your intestines in wine, liquor, bloody meatloaf and buttery corn on the cob

Now wipe the rotten animals and their secretions from your mouth and slip on into your patent leather saddle shoes and peep toed heels

Gather around with fellow classmates, teachers and friends

Laugh and speak in whispers so the Gods do not hear your tall tales and gossip

It is ironic that you slay dark skin at night

Your skin crawls with fear, intimidation and absolute disdain towards Black and Brown skin, yet it is the darkness, the night, that comforts your evil ways, as if you are hiding under cloaks of invisibility

But yet, I still see you

Now on to the main event for the evening in which you have all taken time out of your American dream to attend

A man who has been battered to a pulp, family raped, home stolen and humanness overthrown, is shuffled to the swaying rope that will soon hug his pulsing veins

He will be damned for his "sins" by a man who lays with little girls, smashes their wife's heads with a hot iron and prays to God at night for salvation into a land of eternal Glory

The countdown will commence

The crowd hoots, hollers, and howls, singing their songs to the Devil inside them

Three

Two

One

Wail

SNAP

And the crowd all orgasms in unison

You are relieved that this individual has suffered because you believe that his/ her "crime," is justified

You then invite each other over for tea and dessert to discuss business, dreams, your child’s education, your marriage, and your love of that new clothing store around the corner

You tuck your children beneath freshly scented lavender sheets and peck them with a kiss on the forehead and send them sweet dreams with an "I love you my little angel."

Mommy and Daddy wash up one last time before they lay beside each other's languidly decaying bodies

They are blissfully possessed by the thought that their world is a little more safer with another Black man swinging like loose vine

How can an individual see such an event and lay with satisfaction, gratitude and love in their hearts?

How could they have sweet dreams?

How could they wish ill, death, torture and rape, yet expect the world to treat them and the children they fostered with love?

My Cognitive Response:

How could you have nightmares when you are the Evil that lurks, preys, and feeds off of death and despair, even in the light of day? You are a living nightmare and you are the monster that others have nightmares about

Lynching- putting a person to death by mob action without due process of law.

THIS is still happening and people are still smiling. When people say, "Well he was a thug," I, too, see them in that crowd of pale, shiny porcelain like expressions on their twisted faces. We view public lynchings EVERYDAY on the television, and most say the same as our ancestors, which is, "He deserved it."

While individuals of our previous generation would literally skip away from such a scene to their cookies and milk, individuals in this day and age skip to another channel, find their favorite lifetime movie and move on with their lives in blissful satisfaction. They nestle in their couch as they stuff their gullets with animals and veggies and inhale a deep breath of gratitude for the food that God put on the table.

They end their night and rest their heads on their pillows, maybe after reading The Secret or reciting Rumi quotes, and proceed to bed peacefully, praying to God that their loved ones are safe from the evils of this world.

People once left their homes to gawk at Black and Brown bodies swinging in unison with the breeze, being mauled by the dogs, blasted in the street (or home, or car...nowhere is safe) and penned up in cages for the circus. Now that it is all televised, there is no need to don your Sunday's best. Now, we can view lynchings and dehumanization from the comfort of our homes. No need to wash the stench from our breath, bodies nor soul. We can now fester in our grime without confronting the night to reveal what we truly are.

But yet, I still see you.