I can hear the blood of my people crying out from the ground.
You thought that controlled population wouldn’t make a sound?
How much longer will you try to keep us bound?
This, this is my war cry.
Legalized assassination.
We’re chosen people so this has always been our reality. There have never been any new tricks.
Just the same ole thing. But now it looks like this.
War cry.
Are you that afraid?
You’ve always known who we were meant to be.
Natural born leaders, trendsetters, designed and bred to alter history.
The more you try to stop us, the more powerful we become.
They’ll still be talking about us long after this pandemic is done.
War cry.
Our blood still speaks all the way from times past.
It will continue to speak long after you’ve breathed your last.
You cannot kill who we are meant to be.
You can’t change our legacy.
You will never erase our ingenuity.
Strength, character, hope, struggle. These things are embedded in our bones.
They are the very essence of our being.
We now know what you’ve been seeing.
This, this is my war cry!
Ebonie Warren is a mother and a Black woman raising a Black man.
Arlington Magazine’s Race & Equity essay series is a community voices project, and all perspectives are welcome. To submit, send a 400-500 word essay or a 3-4 minute spoken-word video, plus a photo of yourself, to editorial@