{"id":976,"date":"2019-07-22T22:02:51","date_gmt":"2019-07-23T02:02:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nlg.org\/guild-notes\/?post_type=article&p=976"},"modified":"2019-07-24T17:41:24","modified_gmt":"2019-07-24T21:41:24","slug":"america-you-exposed-the-line-poem","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.nlg.org\/guild-notes\/article\/america-you-exposed-the-line-poem\/","title":{"rendered":"America, You Exposed the Line (Poem)"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jason Geray<\/strong>
\nRepresa, CA<\/strong><\/p>\n

America, you exposed the line
\nBack in my younger days your judges had their axes to grind,
\nYou promised us that justice was really blind,
\nBut that is not what we would find,
\nYou just saw me as someone who was born to do time,
\nAnd yeah, I\u2019m from California the Golden State,
\nBut you\u2019ve sent me to prisons more times than I\u2019ve made it across the Golden Gate
\nUnless I\u2019m riding on the prison bus,
\nYour green dollars all say \u201cIn God We Trust,\u201d
\nBut to you I\u2019m worth about a hundred grand a year,
\nAnd all the people that I know have all passed through here,
\nIt\u2019s just how you keep the system filled,
\nBut you can\u2019t break my spirit cuz it\u2019s so strong-willed,
\nSo I turn on my T.V. and stare at the screen,
\nAnd it\u2019s a habitual liar named Trump,
\nAnd he has big plans to build a wall,
\nBut unfortunately that\u2019s not all,
\nHe also wants to slit the families apart,
\nAnd stop the brown people from a better life and a fresh start,
\nSo I guess that the rumor is true,
\nThat the Brown and Blacks are not red, white, or blue,
\nBut I guess that\u2019s just America\u2019s plan,
\nThe rise of the Ku Klux Klan
\nThat\u2019s spread all the way from the back woods,
\nAnd the secret meetings wearing white hoods,
\nAnd elevating them to become the police, then the local judge,
\nAnd even the mayor of the big city, and then
\nA a department of corrections union member,
\nFunneling a percentage of their pay,
\nTo keep the disadvantage people locked up all day,
\nBy paying politicians and telling them what to say,
\nLike we\u2019re tough on crime,
\nAnd then they pass a thousand laws at a time,
\nAnd have no respect for our civil rights,
\nSo we are doing lifetimes of wasted days
\nAnd wasted nights,
\nBut now I can clearly see through your soulless eyes,
\nAnd your great American white lies,
\nBut I vow to stop you from suppressing my kind,
\nBecause yes America you exposed the line\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jason Geray Represa, CA America, you exposed the line Back in my younger days your judges had their axes to grind, You promised us that justice was really blind, But that is not what we would find, You just saw me as someone who was born to do time, And yeah, I\u2019m from California […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":105,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"issuem_issue":[197],"issuem_issue_categories":[188],"issuem_issue_tags":[148],"class_list":["post-976","article","type-article","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","issuem_issue-guild-notes-vol-44-no-1-2-spring-summer-2019","issuem_issue_categories-beyond-bars","issuem_issue_tags-poetry","post"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t