It's a little more complicated

Climate change. 

We all know it, 
we know that it must be stopped, 
and we're trying, we really are,
but let me give you a different persepective, 
a kind of 'yours truly' from poor people 
and people of color. 

we care about climate change, 
we all live on this Earth after all, 

but it's easier for you to care in your
suburban houses, 
being able to afford solar panels,
and those reusable straws, 

meanwhile, 
people are living in the neighbourhoods 
you abandoned, 
'white flight',

and instead of telling her son to 
compost and recycle, 
she's telling her son not to wear a hoodie outside
at night because 
she wants him to survive, 

because instead of working on making
government offices more sustainable, 
she's focusing on the dread she fells in her stomach
when she sees police lights, 

instead of watching the TV anxiously for the 
Green New Deal, 
This family is watching to see if 
their family in Syria and Yemen have survived, 

instead of wrapping his lunches in bee's wrap, 
he's feeling pretty damn good
because he has lunch at all today, 

while you're saying 
save the planet for the sake of humans, 
because we're all important, 
we're thinking 
oh yeah right
because you didn't seem to care all that much before
whether we lived or died, 

and of course we want to reverse climate change, 
but this dad's working two shifts 
and trying not to get killed by a drive by,

so think about the people 
that you don't see 
when you go to those climate change rallies, 
to those meetings, 
because they are attending rallies for the right
to live in America, 
live in their homes at all, 

because without us you can never win, 
but you seem to dismiss our problems, 
and say that this is one problem to unite us all, 
but how can it be when we're wasting our energy
trying to stay alive, trying to have basic human rights, 
trying not to be charged with our own murders, 
trying to say that life is our right. 

so pay attention, 
be there, 
bring climate change to the 99%, 
ask how you can help, 
because this is how we win. 

together.