Open Letter to Americans

Dear Americans:

When you finally realize that the solution to the economy — rent and groceries (not the stock market, not your investment portfolio), to health and healthcare, bodily autonomy and reproductive rights, the climate crisis, to environmental destruction — of land, air, and water and biodiversity, to wealth inequality, to systemic racism/white supremacy, to colossal, empire-sized military and police budgets — and endless overt and proxy wars and ongoing GENOCIDE — CAN NOT and WILL NOT be found in the BALLOT BOX — blue or red,

— then what?

then, what will you do? will you hope to ride it out quietly with whatever measure of privilege you possess (white male, white adult, middle-classed, usefully employed in the systems of government or institutions of political or corporate power)?

Will you finally rise up and do the necessary-yet-awful, brave, brutal and hard work to resist and fight — like every dignified human collective across history and even today — like the Palestinians? Like the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho? Like the Maroons of Haiti — or will you be like the Germans — roll over, fall in line, bide your time — hope they come for your neighbor or coworker instead; maybe even turn them in?

This “nation is a massacre”, it always has been

for tens of millions of people right here of and on this land — and for hundreds of millions globally — even if that excludes you and yours (for now).

Enough of this profane American existence.

Enough already.

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“wolf”

for the One and Only

Lajuana Lampkins

March 29, 1957 ~ February 26, 2025

May Allah grant her Jannah

& for All the Mothers whose children were — and will be murdered by the State — domestic or foreign, & for All Mothers who have lost — and will lose their children to the brutal and carceral machinations and institutions of the State

Weighing of the Heart | Book of the Dead
Thoth and Anubis weigh the candidate’s heart against the feather of Ma’at while Ammit hungrily awaits the judgment.
Inside Ancient Egypt exhibit,
Field Museum of Natural History,
Chicago, January 2013
photo: by author

she cries “wolf!” so often
that it becomes tempting to ignore

yet the wolves were always nearby,
stalking, steady clawing at her door

there’s a Wolf curled up at her feet now,
but he’s not of the pack of violent beasts,

you see, this Wolf is not a hungried one,
and He does not want her for his feast

Anubis is the Wolf’s name,
and He waits to gently weigh her Heart

on the Golden Scales of Justice
He’s balanced with a badge and service glock,

these reparations just for her, and Mothers like her,
in lieu of the Feather of Ma’at

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