Standing In My Blackness

“I Love Being Black “

 

I love being black

Different shades of melanin

Dripping off the accents of our body

 

Our history misconstrued

But we reclaim it back to justice

Telling the truth

Sounds like giving voice to our ancestors

Those who were the first on this land

We identify them as African King and African Queen

 

Negus

N-E-G-U-S

Used as an Ethiopian title for sovereign and royalty

If you’re going to call me the “N Word”

Let it be that one

 

Blue badges and gold shields fear me no more

Rest in peace to my brothers and sisters

Who were victims of Ameri-KKK’s  ignorance

 

You

Beat me blue

Because you are afraid of my skin color

A threat because our different shades of brown

Don’t comply with your eurocentric eyes

Your blind

To the fact that your mind has been incarcerated within a system

who has failed the very people who built this country

 

It’s ugly how

Justice systems systematically institutionalize black people to fail

Kalief Browder

Spent 366 days in solitary for a crime he did not commit

Social isolation results in a lack of mental stimulation

 

They try to keep the black in the back

Shouting all lives matter a.k.a white lives matter

But all lives can’t matter until Black Lives matter

What’s the matter

Did I say something to offend you

 

~

My fellow black leaders

Raising awareness is knowing that there is a problem

We must promote action

But trying to change a system that was built on structural inequalities

And intersectionality will not work

 

We must first dismantle the very system that is systematically desensitizing our people

Trying to make us forget about our African roots

They still see us as forbidden fruits

They fail to tell the truth

You don’t get to take us from our land and act like it wasn’t you

 

So don’t assume that I am less than you

Because if the roles were changed

You would be amazed how

For over four centuries we have been able same

Treatment

 

Black people

Stand hand and hand as we go through our trials

Cheer as we meet our tribulations

 

I love being BLACK

Because I stand with the souls of my ancestors on my back

Struggle in my past

Truth on my lips

Courage on my hips

 

I LOVE BEING BLACK