The Other Side

And he turned around like he was going to hit me, but he didn't because this other cop stopped him…All of a sudden that was a very revealing moment to me. All of my life police had been on my side. I didn't think of it that way, but police didn't bother you, you know, in the world where I grew up. All of a sudden I realized that I was on the other side. - Anne Braden

Welcome to the other side

It's been here the whole time

You've been happy where you were

With your existence not a crime

But now you've seen how things are

You're seen the truth behind the curtain

I know that you want to return

To a life that was much more certain

But this world does not go away

Just because you forget it's here

Those in this world still live with pain

With injustice and with fear

You can take up this fight

And try to make things better

Talk. Learn. Protest. 

Rewrite every unjust word and letter.

You have just joined this battle

But the struggle is far from new

Better get ready now

There's a lifetime of this to go through

For the pain may be age-old

But so is the hope of future change

The idea of the world that can be

Is both wonderful and strange

Do not abandon this cause

When it is no longer the favour of the day

Fight so that the other side

Is no longer so far away

In every age, no matter how cruel the oppression carried on by those in power, there have been those who struggled for a different world. I believe this is the genius of humankind, the thing that makes us half divine: the fact that some human beings can envision a world that has never existed. - Anne Braden