The nineties sold us unity:
bright sitcoms,
Benetton colors,
commercials where everyone smiled
as though inequity had been resolved.

But the decade bled on screen—
a Black man beaten on asphalt,
a truck driver dragged from his cab,
bomb dust in Oklahoma,
children hunted in a school corridor.
Unity was the costume;
violence was the stage.

Then came a Black president.
For a moment,
the story looked complete.
"Post-racial," they said,
as though history had closed.

But the mask split.
Social media tore out the gatekeepers.
The hate that had been muted
found its tongue,
found its profit,
and screamed into the feed.

Division pays.
Unity does not.
Violence is systemic,
holistic,
from home to street to state.
Silence makes it whole.

The ethic remains:
If it is wrong, you stop it.
Otherwise the cycle turns,
profitable, endless,
calling itself America.