Lyrics

​Poem (Shemu’el Namaste)
The children are watching 
 
The future is observing 
The path we set will tell its tale
And it will tell no lies
Because the truth has no morale
Except the ones you give it
When you set laws against the human condition 
Leaving non-white white wishin’
 
The children are watching
 
The ones we ask to lead the empire
Are grabbing genitalia because fame permits

The children are watching 
 
Do as I say not as I do is just mere excuse
Because behavior is learned then taught
So when daddy jokes about black folks 
But on Sunday compels heathens to repent
 
The children are watching 
 
When gender is sometimes 
But all the time 
When maternity leave
Leaves the lower class broke
 
The children are a witness
 
When a man is choked out because his skin 
Doesn't permit him to pull himself up by his own bootstraps 
Because the law made his straps illegal 
 
The children know the future,
because you created it ​​

Talk (Scott Neely)
On behalf of Speaking Down Barriers, my colleague Shemu'el Namaste and I would like to thank you for the honor of being with you today. Speaking Down Barriers brings people together across all of the differences that can divide us--differences of race and ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and national origin--to help us discover that our differences can be a point of connection and strength, rather than of separation and weakness. We work through facilitated community dialogue, presentations and teaching, spoken word performance and writing, and training. We are grateful for the opportunity to observe this day of service and moral challenge with you.
 
We are all building a future, but what is the future we are building? The legacy of Dr. King is not only of laws that changed. It is not only of a love for humanity in general. The legacy of Dr. King--of the team of which he was a part--of all of them, together--is a legacy of consciousness, of consciousness specifically about our society and the history which created it. The power of Dr. King--of the team of which he was a part--of all of them, together--is their choice to act out of a deep, awakened consciousness, on behalf of all of us, specifically and especially to advocate for those our nation sought to exploit and destroy in order to enrich itself--and also to awaken and call to a better path those who have benefited from their exploitation, impoverishment, and deaths. Seeing our world clearly for what it is, they chose to act for justice, and for community, and for love in this history, in our history--for each one of us in our specific blindness and specific need.
 
Our work today is no different. Our work is to become conscious of the world we live in and of our place in it, of its history and violence and the patterns of privilege and exploitation that are still a part of us today. This is our work, in order to transform our world into something better. If we act simply out of a general love, out of a general goodness--if we do not examine ourselves and our motives and the actions that result from them--we will perpetuate the very inequities and disparities, the very history of violence and exploitation in the name of liberty and justice for all, that we are striving so hard to change. The legacy of Dr. King--of the team of which he was a part--of all of them, together--is conscious action.
 
We want to offer you today a tool for conscious action. Affirmation is a practice of naming the future we believe can be, and for which we will strive. Affirmations offer us an energetic pathway into the future we know can come into being. By affirming what is best, by affirming the good that is coming, by affirming our actions to create that future of which we dream, we clear away the obstacles within and around us that would close our path. And we build a future. These affirmations are a path, for each of us, and for those we seek to serve. They are a step of conscious action.
 
Affirmations (Shemu’el Namaste) 
(repeat each 3 times)
 
I will take the necessary risks to make the future we want our children to live and love in.
This future is one of equity and equality.  I have a stake in that.
I rid myself of fears of the things and progress I cannot control because love is my guide.