I Am The Oppressor

This poem is my feeble attempt to tell the story of oppression. It leaves a little room for hope for those who can eventually see the error of their way. I often hear, "I did not do it," which is correct, but when we continue to profit from the system that our people created years ago, then we remain guilty by our silence. Let me know what you think about these words.

                                                 I Am The Oppressor

I am the oppressor
Who has been written about and described;
I am the one who has held the chains, the whip, the power,
I am the one you all have personified.

I am the oppressor

The one who bought the land and the people;
I am the one who chose who would go where,
The one who built the house with the steeple.

I am the oppressor

The one who bought people’s flesh;
I am the one who sought control and fields and influence,
I am the one who knew what was best.

I am the oppressor

The one who owned those sailing boats;
Whose cargo was like any other animal,
I am the one whose banks held the notes.

I am the oppressor

The one who owned all the land;
Whose purchases worked day and night,
To support me and my clan.

I am the oppressor

The one who wrote the important laws;
Who decided who was human,
The one who voted for my own cause.

I am the oppressor

Who lived in the big plantation home;
The one with those huge columns,
Who left you only at night to roam.

I am the oppressor
Who sold those kids away,
From their mamas and their daddies
Just to work another day.
 
I am the oppressor
Who broke up all those families,
The one who made a lot of money off of
Other peoples’ calamities.

I am the oppressor

Who set the weights of the scales;
The one who decided the worth of your crop,
The one who profited the most from the sales.

I am the oppressor

The one who created that powerful institution;
The one who hates paying back
Someone with what is called restitution.

I am the oppressor

The one who knows not compassion;
I am the one who wields the power of the pen,
I am the one who sets up good like a ration.

I am the oppressor

The one pretending to be someone I’m not;
I am the one who buys and sells at will,
I am the one whose very institutions will someday rot.

I am the oppressor

The one who establishes systems of power;
I am the one who worries late into the night,
I am the one who unknowingly awaits the final hour.

I am the oppressor

The decider of what is right and wrong;
I am the one who hears only my own tune,
And wants others to sing my own song.

I am the oppressor

The one who does not even try to hear;
I am the one who does not begin to grasp,
The cries and moans and groans that fall upon my human ear.

I am the oppressor

The one whose skin is white;
I am the one who knows not that today’s victory,
Will turn into the horrors at the dawning of the right.

I am the oppressor

Who does not seek to understand;
That dignity is that for which all humans search,
Their cause is no concern as it is not under my command.

I am the oppressor

And someday soon
I will be the oppressed
It will be now or noon.

The Lord will come to make all things right

It may be soon or it may be on down the road;
The one who will not be ready
For that is too heavy a load.

To change my perspective

From power and greed;
To respect humanity
Is more than I can concede.

I am the oppressor

But I am in my self-imposed chains;
I will hold on to my power till the rocks cry out
And my possessions reveal my deepest pain.

When my own spiritual drought

Has come to an end;
Then I will know what I have refused to see
I have wasted my life on that which I could spend.

Forgive me, Lord, for participating

In my own demise and many others;
And those I refused to see as my sisters,
My kinfolk my brothers.

Amen