What If Justice Was Normal?
For the builders, the dreamers, and the doers
What if justice was normal?
Not rare.
Not radical.
Not whispered in back rooms
or shouted only after funerals.
But baked into the bones
of how we live—
like breath,
like bread,
like the sun that rises
without permission.
What if it wasn't breaking news
to see a Black child live long enough
to tell their story?
What if sirens meant safety
and not sorrow?
What if no one flinched
when they saw the lights behind them
because no one ever had to?
What if we stopped dreaming
like justice is fantasy
and started building
like it’s our birthright?
We have dreamt long enough.
Now is the time to plant.
To sweat.
To pick up the bricks
and stack them with intention—
love in one hand,
truth in the other.
Build a neighborhood
where no child learns to duck
before they learn to read.
Build a classroom
where no name is mispronounced
and no history is erased.
Build a courtroom
where mercy walks tall
and truth doesn’t wear a price tag.
Let justice be the language
we teach our children,
the rhythm in their footsteps,
the lullaby in their bones.
Let it be in the way we vote,
in the way we shop,
in the way we treat
the janitor and the judge
with the same sacred dignity.
Let it be habit.
Let it be heritage.
Let it be home.
Maya said still we rise—
but what if we rose
and reached?
John said get into good trouble—
but what if we made good
into policy,
into pavement,
into places where no one
has to fight to be seen?
Justice is not a theory.
It’s not a hashtag.
It’s a door you open
so someone else doesn’t have to knock.
It’s a table you widen
until every soul has a seat
and nobody eats alone.
We have prayed.
We have wept.
We have marched.
Now we must make.
Make a justice
that doesn’t wait for tragedy.
Make a peace
that doesn’t beg for permission.
Make a world
where equity is not earned—
but expected.
What if justice was normal?
It can be.
It must be.
It starts not in some distant land,
but in your living room,
your school,
your wallet,
your vote,
your voice.
So let’s rise—
not just on platforms
but in purpose.
Let’s speak—
not just when it’s safe,
but when it’s sacred.
Let’s build—
because the future won’t wait.
And we were made
not just to dream it—
but to do it.
What a day that will be!
Dear Dave,
Your poem settled into me like something remembered—something ancestral, steady, and deeply true. “What if justice was normal?” That question doesn’t echo—it roots. It asks not just for vision, but for presence. For participation.
What you offer isn’t just a reflection—it’s an invitation. To rise without spectacle. To build without waiting for permission. To make love, dignity, and equity so woven into our daily choices that no one has to question whether they belong.
You speak to the spaces between headlines, to the quiet rooms where culture is shaped long before it’s noticed. Where children learn whether justice is something they can expect—or something they must earn.
Reading your words, I didn’t feel stirred to perform. I felt called to continue—to return again to the patient, sometimes invisible labor of care. Of listening. Of creating change that doesn’t vanish with the scroll.
So thank you, Dave. For your clarity. For making space where truth can breathe. For showing that justice isn’t a moment—it’s a way of being. One we can practice. One we can offer.