“Nobody’s as powerful as we make them out to be.”
-Alice Walker (The Third Life of Grange Copeland)
“I don’t want a Black History Month. Black history is American history.”
– Morgan Freeman
Perhaps I really am arrogant
A speck of dust that chooses not to settle
On the sand dunes with grains
Filled with contentment,
But rather, hitch a ride
On the winds of change
Soar through turbulent skies
Finding my own truth
Not relying on that which I’ve been handed.
To fight for my people
Rather, the suppressors of a movement unhinged
A month is far from enough
Give me a platform
To praise the origins of the Black Star
And i’d rather use it
To address the blight in society
To expose the condescending confinement
Of a history that dwarfs
That which you choose to give.
I will not smile and be subtle in how I write
You weren’t subtle when you
Mistook our kindness for weakness
Bringing your “ideal” forms of change
Like you’re the definitive source of salvation
Cursing an entire race
To a legacy of cotton picking.
What do you call it again,
First World? Third World?
To who, you?
You trying to tell me
That as a continent
We are nothing until you believe
We are something?
That all we could ever hope to be,
Is you?
Don’t make me laugh.
You shoot us in the knee cap
Run a thousand miles with OUR supplies
Then tell us to catch up?
You broke the rules, to make new rules
To break them,
Again.
Do not tell me to quell my rage
As you sip martinis in the comfort
Of foundations built on my forefathers
Blood, sweat and tears;
I am an incarnation of 400 years of rebellion
I am the echo that reverberates
In place of those afraid to be perceived
As disturbers of peace.
Peace is not living under
A commercialized sense of happiness,
Peace is not lying to ourselves
And others that you see us as equals;
Peace is building awareness for your crimes
Peace is the admission,
That you would not be where you are
Without us.
– Original-Dante ©2017
Art by: tacsitimea
O.D. 