Local police officer raises awareness with poetry

MILAN, Tenn. — Events across the country are prompting some to protest and others to express themselves. WBBJ 7 Eyewitness News Reporter Julia Ewoldt listened to a poem from a local police officer Monday.

“There is a particular dichotomy that accompanies being black while blue. If you say my blue life matters, then my black life should too.”

The above excerpt begins a poem titled “The Dichotomy of Black & Blue”, written by Lieutenant Nick Glenn with the Milan Police Department.

“I supervise the SROs, the school resource officers, and I’m assigned as a detective, and I just come to work and do the best I can every day,” Glenn said. “When I take off my badge, and put it up for the night, or put my uniform in the closet, I can go somewhere and no one immediately know I’m a police officer. But everywhere I go, they immediately know I’m a black man.”

Glenn shared the poem via his Facebook page following recent events that led to protests and riots across the country.

“You see things going on in other cities across the country that are blatantly wrong that you just don’t agree with, but it still affects you on a human level, on top of being a police officer,” Glenn said. “So we are all different, we all have different backgrounds. We all have different culturally experiences we go through.”

Read the full poem below.

The Dichotomy of Black & Blue

There is a particular dichotomy that accompanies being black while blue.

If you say my blue life matters, then my black life should too.

My blue life is a calling, but in the end, just a vocation

While my black life travels with me to every location.

This badge has been tarnished through no fault of my own

to the point where I’m terrified at the though of my sons’ being on a traffic stop alone.

People say they don’t see color, but they clearly see blue.

You would be yelling too, if this continued to happen to you.

After rivers of flowing tears and hundreds of years of oppression

We are remedial, and have not learned but keep repeating the same classroom lesson.

There is a particular dichotomy that accompanies being black while blue

Because when you are off duty you know, they might just shoot you.

My blue life gets celebrated, but I’m tired of the indistinct chatter

What I need is for all to acknowledge that my BLACK LIFE MATTERS!