What Can I Say About Slavery?

What Can I Say About Slavery?

If you have to ask that question,
You sound as if you don't care
A race of people was subjugated by another.

If you have to ask that question,
You don't understand the Civil War
And how it still has meaning today.

If you have to ask that question,
It makes us wonder if you
Know about the struggle for civil rights.

If you have to ask that question,
It shows us you are out of touch
With police brutality and black lives matter.

If you have to ask that question,
You show us you're ignorant;
You sound white and privileged.

If you have to ask that question,
Then talk back for days your lame response
To causes of the Civil War

Which you said was about
how government should run
howwe need capitalism

Which you said was about
how we need economic freedom
how we need to keep government out of the way

And then talk to those same points again,
Supposedly lessons we should have learned from the war,,
You then say growing up in the South, slavery is a given.

Is a given? Really?
Next question–
We have to ask this.

Should you, from South Carolina, once a hotbed of rebellion,
Who has to ask what you can say about slavery,
Be running for president of these United States?

In response to presidential candidate Nikki Haley failing to mention slavery as a cause of the Civil War during a campaign stop in Maine late 2023.