[IMAGE: Mural in Minneapolis by Xena Goldman, Cadex Herrera, Greta McLain, Niko Alexander, and Pablo Hernandez]

What is justice,

When the only proof of a lynching is the very image of it happening,

Again and again?

What is justice when this is the exception?

This is a sick feeling of knowing,

Nothing will bring back

The life battled for,

Too little too late,

What is justice when the very judgement brings with it a greater sense of fear for those of deeper pigmentation?

For vigilante retribution? Revenge?

Why does the hammer of judgement only

Bring to mind more images

More worries

of breathless lungs,

bodies burning,

Of bodies swinging;

That strange fruit

Our people know too well?

May our prayers of peace,

Of this first as a trend

Be met with a  change,

A shift,

Be met with true justice,

–Let [it] “roll down like waters

and righteousness like a mighty stream”