By Teneille Brown
We opened up
On the backs of our employees
The nation’s gravel, its highways
Paved with useless our bodies
That saved the automobiles and vans shifting
merchandise.
Don’t cry for the dangers we had been requested to take
swaddled in lies
they hushed us like infants
ignoring folks of science
when the bough was breaking—broke.
As a substitute, cry, the beloved firms,
the nervous CEOs who demanded immunity
not simply safety to make affordable errors
within the face of uncertainty,
however a Monopoly move to
be unreasonable.
As if it weren’t already unattainable to carry
energy accountable—
did we even know we had rights to plead?
May we ever have hoped
to make it to a jury
to even partially subdue
the company ramparts
so gallantly streaming?
However within the disaster,
immunities rained down,
Tossed freely round like sweet at a 4th of July parade
Most wholesome, smiling faces within the crowd received some
simply elevate your hand
going as soon as, going twice…
bought!
to the great gentleman who donated.
Taffy for the nursing properties,
lollipops for the machine producers…
the pharmacies,
the hospitals,
the company sugar rush
will final past the pandemic
the whole lot packaged in a Pink Cross wrapper
so we might inform ourselves they had been serving to the heroes.
Someway, we learn the banner mistaken,
received it twisted
thought the security internet
ought to be catching the mistaken folks and issues.
We stepped over and on those who wanted it most
the poor, the sick,
the hospital employees,
these making ready our meals
gave them their very own loud parades
at 7pm, each evening in Manhattan
with whistles and TikTok tributes
however so very, very unrewarded
no music or sweet
simply the “freedom to work”
changing theirs
with ours
stacking up golden
hole variations of them on pedestals
to later knock down dramatically
after they requested us to put on masks.
The flipside of particular person liberty
is loneliness—its personal type of oppression.
We had been free
to stitch our social cloth with one hand and one skinny thread
solo
with out youngster care
with out a classroom
with out a group, we unraveled.
Remoted
in shelters product of straw
after which blamed
when the predictable and chronic wolves
blew our home in.
However aren’t you fortunate?
What’s behind door quantity two is a prize
we gave YOU
a no-expense paid journey,
a tort treatment
that hopefully you’ll by no means have to make use of
as a result of we firmly consider that the wolves may be trusted
to guard you.
You’re welcome.
Neglect
that the majority of us
go away bruised
and empty-handed.
Neglect
that you have to show
to the King
that Humpty was pushed
as a substitute of falling
from his ramshackle metropolis partitions.
Neglect
that it’s good to wait to your family members to be damaged
after which after a couple of years of combating
drained to your bones
you might-just-might (however most likely gained’t) get some cash
to place the items collectively once more
as a result of we someway consider
the fairytale
that cash makes us complete.
However within the midst of this chaos,
you had been seemingly robbed of even that
as a result of all of the king’s horses and all of the king’s males
are immune
even after they had been reckless.
You aren’t mistaken
to be puzzled
by our bootlegging ideas from Kings
company empires and issues
we had been meant to reject.
Was it hopelessly naïve,
to suppose
that the candy land of liberty
would prolong past that first wave
of pilgrims?
Maybe, maybe.
However there was a second
when the governors and policymakers had decisions
and at each flip
they selected earnings
over folks.
Giving all the bricks away,
to the piggies, the highly effective
those who took few private dangers
who for tons of of years have been claiming that the sky would fall
in the event you gave paid go away
or dwelling wages
after which immediately had been wonderful
after they needed to be.
We hear all the causes—
for safeguarding the not-sovereign sovereigns:
“governments should have discretion”
(to injure their folks)
“separation of powers”
(should be unchecked by courts)
in any case, they’re politically accountable
(a bald lie at worst when the actors are unelected, and
magical pondering at greatest
after we stay in gerrymandered, Residents-disUnited districts.)
Perhaps it’s been too lengthy,
we forgot the lyrics and
perverted the tune
My Nation Tis of Thee,
candy land of liberty—
for the wealthy and afraid.
Teneille Brown is a Professor of Regulation on the S.J. Quinney School of Regulation and an adjunct within the Division of Inner Drugs/Middle for Well being Ethics, Arts, and Humanities (CHeEtAH). Learn extra about immunity from legal responsibility within the COVID-19 pandemic in Brown’s article, “When the mistaken persons are immune,” printed within the Journal of Regulation and the Biosciences in 2020.
