The Neo Negroes

By: William Jones

I wake up, open my eyes

Only to find the same darkness continuing to blind

I keep praying for salvation or a revelation

But here I remain, sitting in my own defecation.

My eyes close, leaving only my senses to feel the rocking.

Opening every so often to see my captors stalking

Walking down the musty rows of our cages,

Scheming, based on the size of our bodies how they will make their wages.

These pale figures feeding us spoiled bread and contaminated water

Feeding the oceans with the corpse of my dead brother and mother.

Malnourished, infected, and too weak they lay,

Deemed unfit to work, thus tossed aside like a farmer does a sack of hay.

When the rocking stops and the cages open I feel free...

Only to be replaced by shackles and a crackling whip as I am brought back down to my Knees.

I swear one day I'll relay to my kin in great length

About the hells from which the Negroes gain their strength.

Now from my grave I watch

As some descendant of mine approaches with his 'iced out' watch

And his shoes and his jewels which he defines as fashion

He has not a clue of the struggles that have happened.

History has repeated itself, my people left to suffer

Paid minimum wage to become somebody’s butler

The shackles and the cages and the chains have been replaced

By someone with no face, or claim to a particular race.

He is the new white man, the new imperialist

Thus for Negroes, pop-culture has become our new slave ship.

Whisking us to the stores, as we watch for new releases online

I wonder how long the freedom ride will take us this time.