Things I May (Or May Not) Take A Knee For Depending On The Strength Of My Convictions Or How Much Money I Have

I may take the knee for PepsiCo, depending on how many mothers did not see their children b/c they were laboring to keep my sugar addiction quenched and plenty ascorbic acid in the soda fountain at work.

I may take the knee for the Telecommunications Act of 1996 for guaranteeing me low-cost streaming services and monopolies that keep Netflix and Spotify both at 8.99 a month while artists who make their product split the value of a cent so much we eventually stop caring.

I may take the knee for the rent control (in name only) that keeps my 2BR Harlem apartment affordable enough for me but not the Black women who moved in this jawn in 1979 when it was built, only to watch it crumble in disrepair while gentrifiers (like me) pushed up the market value past the limits of their fixed income social-security-check lives.

I may or may not pledge allegiance to my iPhone, whose 100-dollar-debit could feed all the starving children in countries I travel to for the lit selfies and crystal waterfalls.

I may or may not protest the fresh avocados piled in my grocery aisle when they start charging more than 2-for-5 dollars, depending on how much empathy I have for Mexican farmers that day. I may forgo the avo on my sandwich.

I may or may not want my MTV.

I may take the knee for domestic abuse I disbelieved, when I saw sis with the bruises because I could not digest it otherwise. I will take the knee for your abortion if the baby is mine. This one last time.

I may take the knee at airport security when they fondle the Sikh scalp in front of me and scowl at the Dread behind me.

I may take the knee for the extra straws I nab at McDonald's because I know they won't miss them and I'm not sure how sick the ocean might get with all this plastic in it.

I'm protesting my daily weed hit because a nine-year-old drug mule's cadaver was found carrying my eighth a few months after the stench had finally drifted.

I may take a knee on this Poland Spring or avoid this Smart Water because I know San Juan needs it, and Libya *been* needed it, and a billion people can't find it in a bottle, or a tap, or anywhere that's real to me.

I will not take a knee for this WiFi.

I will not take a knee for MySpace, RIP, but I may take a knee for Facebook, depending on how self-conscious this status makes me feel. Or how many likes it gets.

I may take a knee on the first draft of this but refuse to take a knee on the 2nd.

I may take a knee on these Air Max 95s but probably won't because the colorways too fly.

I may support Black business in lieu of my ambivalence.

I may take a knee with you if we lock arms so neither of us has to commit.

I'm taking a knee on this group chat. A moment of silence.

Please. Stand with me to take this knee.