Hello everyone. I believe this is my “deepest/most personal” poem to date. It’s one of my favorites. Enjoy!
When I come around, I pretend I don’t hear the sounds
Or see the looks of general curiosity
Parts of me want to shout and say
"I know who I am, and that’s okay"
But it’s not… because I don’t
Growing up, I claimed my Cherokee heritage
Even though there is no substantial proof
I was also told I could be German
And yeah, Cuban too
Possibly Jamaican, due to daddy’s locks that were shaking
And my height that came to match
Early on I didn’t catch
The pain my mother would hatch
When she’d mention her dark complexion
Compared to my dad, so she became sad
I didn’t understand, what I am or where I be
It was hard to perceive the general complexity
Of race, class, gender, and creed
Dark skin vs light skin-did was always the talk
Dark skins can’t get a job, light skins selfied while they walked
Light skins won’t call back but dark skins would be accused of attack
Why can’t we just all be considered BLACK?
Why do we separate, even if the palette of our families don’t match?
Yeah, technically we aren’t BLACK, but you know what I mean
Since African American is a term that most of us feel demeans
Our actual “place” in this world not full of grace…
it’s a disgrace we can’t be embraced
Equally unequal is the status of the hood
Because where justice stood, people were behaving like they outta not be good
You know how the children’s story goes, people killing, money woes
Black on black crime, because we can’t make up our minds
I know the media blows this all out of proportion
We’re not all bad, and we don’t just need coercion
We need our mothers and fathers, or grannies and uncles
We need to love ourselves first, to get out of this curse
And just because I’m black, doesn’t mean I’m a “nigga”
I’m not ignorant, low, or beneath you, and your 6 figures
And in my headphones I bop to not just Hip Hop
I love bachata, classical, and rock,
who knew?
My first musical loves:
Led Zeppelin
And The Legendary Roots crew
The color of my skin is not an accurate representation of my musical choices
It does not equate to the way my vernacular swirls and swings and the way my flow rejoices
And I’m proud to say I know where I come from
I took a little test on Ancestry.com
I’m 3/4 West African… Togo, Cameroon, and Senegal
Admixed like the rest of America and beyond
Unlike my brothas and sistas who just know they’re descendants from slaves
I can say I’ve paid my way to understanding where I may have come from that day
It’s a privilege for a black person to find these things out
But whites are born and bred to speak aloud how they came about
I’ve never met someone who looks like me,
to say I can trace my family history
Although both sides of family say “we came from down south”
That wasn’t good enough for me, so I took it upon myself to erase the doubt
What am I? Who am I? Where in Africa has my family been?
Were they from Ghana, Mali, Benin?
Where else did they breed? Great Britain, Ireland, are they Portuguese?
Turns out all of these, my bloodline did trace back for me
I remain Black and proud, no matter what is in my blood
And know some doubters won’t understand, it’s all good
This wasn’t for you, nor the benefit of the black race
Not for the people who’ve spit in my face
Neglecting the fact I can overcome
The fact that I can, I will, I’ve won
Someday I’ll meet the people of these places
So I can get a good look at my traces
And start a movement to get us all involved
In discovering our roots, no perming at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment