The Deep Brown...

I was riding the NYC metro when I looked beside me, witnessing an older black American man reading a headline that read "Lyching now made a hate crime." How did that man feel reading that headline?

Deep Brown Eyes read headlines.

It's 2020 and old things, labeled new hate crimes:

That should have changed back in 1979

The unfortunate fact that hate still stays 

the same
only the dates change.

It's 2020 and the headline reads:

"Lynching now made a hate crime"

Deep Brown Eyes read headlines.

and it's 2020, and old hate is labeled as 
new crime.

That should have changed back in 1959.

and Deep Brown Eyes see the same headlines

about the same hate crimes

repeated and revised and re-labeled

with new road map state lines
with new road map state lies

and the same messages

and the same messages on the picket signs that those same eyes helped design

in 1969.

and Deep Brown Eyes don't smile at the headline.

no.

A melancholy indifference reads the same headlines they saw

back in 1979

"Lynching now labeled a hate crime"

Deep Brown Eyes have seen time change

but no changes in the times

and

hate has always been a crime

and hate has always been a headline.

Deep Brown Eyes read headlines

and then, quickly, turn the page.

No use reading lies.