Rise Up

        If I were a man    They’d be hashtagging my name and calling me a martyr      Celebrating my resistance as the ultimate stand        Against State power  I’d be a street legend, like gangsters who went out blazing, like souljahsThey’d be lamenting about how my son is gonna value his Daddy’s sacrifice      When he gets a little older        If I were a 6ft man  They’d never believe I hung myself with a trash bag in a cell    Right after I called the police force pussies,      Told them all to go to hellThey’d believe that I was too rational, too strong for that, if I were a man        If I were a man  They wouldn’t chastise me for training my son to be a resister    Call me a bad dad, like they labeled me a bad mom  Because I was an unapologetically black, an outspoken sisterThey’d know I was training and protecting my son from a brutal State        If I were a man  They’d understand a father’s need to ensure his son    Would fight to resist the all too familiar fate  Of becoming another voiceless Black boy laid slain in the streetsBlood flowing from bullet wounds in Black bodies, stains on black concrete        If I were a man   They’d know that I had refused to imagine his mother’s scream    Falling to her knees and crying out to God asking,No helplessly and hopelessly begging Him to take her instead, please!    The streets would understand my need to “be a man”        If I were a man    They wouldn’t have to ask me to #sayhername  There are hashtags for virtually every Black man slain today      Hell! My sisters would already be in formation    They’d be resisting on my behalf commemorating  My refusal to be lynched by State actors in this nation        If I were a man  They would never forget my name because it would beEtched in every mind and passed on like fables through generations  Because we paid the ultimate price for our resistance,      We didn’t bow downWe rose up, spoke up, loaded up, fists up, fought back until our last breath    And the price we paid for resistance—death      Shiiit . . . If I were a man  My memory would be memorialized long after my body was laid to rest      But that’s only if I were a man    Wouldn’t my very resistance be heroically grand        If only, I were a man?      #KorrynGaines #SandraBland