Why should I not take risks with Covid-19;
why not join protests against police murder of Floyd
to register my conscience against the evil of racism
despite the raging novel coronavirus?
What causes more havoc to the land and people:
the coronavirus with its tally of over a hundred thousand
or because of systemic racism the many millions that
have died in all the centuries of a nation’s independence?
What poses more danger to human existence:
the virus that can be managed and a vaccine can eliminate
or the total disregard for blacks and their lives
by those hiding behind their own skin to kill others?
Why should I not risk a season’s pandemic
to wipe out racism, the endemic epidemic;
why should I not settle the perennial problem
before the season’s bother over health and jobs?
If both the coronavirus and racism bring death,
why not allow me choose what to die for—
be a hero forever by stamping out racism, or
defying what has only 2% chance of killing me?
