Ally is the New Woke

Ally is the new woke And the joke of it is we stole both Those words from the black community Words that were meant to evoke pride Now hastily applied to white Dread-headed hippies talking louder Than the black folk Ally is the new woke That's what London told me But she couldn't tell me her real name 2020 June, tensions inflamed to infinity Her identity a liability - the blame For the wounded egos And white fragility laid squarely On her dark-skinned 22 year old frame Ally is the new woke The irony is that we don't see it That we don't believe that we could be "it" We know some "other" people are racist but never realize How precisely the shoe fits Our equals don't need our pity, they need divestment Community enrichment, tenacious budget assessment We've offered them facebook posts after hundreds of years of slavery And can't understand why there might be resentment Ally is the new woke While we continue to steal the culture unashamed Blues festivals filled with white headliners Red-liners Jim Crow gatekeepers Living legends dying broke But now we're changing names, playing games Antebellum is taboo, we'll just push over Lady A Speaking in so many voices it's a wonder we don't choke We'll call it a tribute We'll call our lawyers We'll call it a day Ally is the new woke How else can I count the ways The number of things that we stole How long of a scroll would it take to invoke The appropriation, the power consolidation The times we pretended to care And were just blowing smoke How can we list them, grist them, raise our fist in spite of them When all we're really being asked to do is listen The history's grim though, listening Is a burden we are unlikely to bear Ally is the new woke Ally is the Understand But, but, but Understand, understand, under-STAND Ally is the new woke So insensitive we stole your protests White kids antifa'd out Taking photos with the riot line Spraying BLM on the hotel walls But damn we didn't steal your prison time Black protestors consistently charged with heavier crimes Paying heftier fines While the white kids parents had them out of jail by 9 Six months later and we no longer have the time The problem isn't always the words we can't find But the way we get stuck trying to make them... Forget about poetry for a minute And all of the lies that we like to tell in it And all of the lies that we like to tell over And over and over until we believe them And all of the lies that we add to the lies To help us forget it was we who conceived them Turning our ears now to difficult truth Turning our hearts now to difficult silence Christ sweating blood on the Mountain of Olives, Gethsemane While his allies calmly slept on Ready to fight, ready to stand But unwilling or unable to actually understand To what they had truly been called Ally is the new woke And I imagine my black friends are getting tired Tired of wondering which of the white "allies" is going To be awake with them come morning