battered black memories
black savages
blackened eyes civil liberties
yet ask for black submission and civility
black proclivities
blackened affinities
blacker enmity
blackest enemies
blacked out sensitivity
lashed black backs, brands, baggage, bondage, and boats of broken beaten beasts of infertility
black physically
black mentally
black spirits, black souls, black hearts, black eyes, and black invisibility
black inherited generational traumatic identities
black masters turned to black captives and yes’m master
black capturers castrated black buoyancy and bravado, creating black bastards
black epitome-subservience, self-hate, and misery
if black matters, its black matters’, but no different than dark or black matter
black as the anonymity
of
Black contributions to Americans and America’s History
black trinity
cope, hope, and ropes
or anger aggression and alienation
and Black History
is
Americanised African History
…
don’t give me a month, it’s too vague and obtuse, reeking of overcompensation, give me a day of reckoning, engagement, and a moment of spoken atonement
quit showing me pictures of dogs, ropes, and water hoses
the majesty of black people is throughout every bend, we never folded
still grasping life, despite every obit
we have innovated the world, America covers our blood trails, and the World acts as archaeologists excavating our footprints throughout popular culture from every corner of the globe
yet more focus in upon the broadness of our nose
our slang and the style of our clothes
our hair-how it coils, our skin, how it oils, its complexion and tone
these constant images resurrected are another act of social control
more shame and trauma relived, broad stroking each new generation with a narrow visual, desensitizing the harm done by diluted documentaries and Hollywood casting roles
…
if a person doesn’t know who they are, how can they live with dignity and expect respect back
America expects us to reflect that lack of respect it deflects back
so respect isn’t what we expect, and America expects that
laughing audaciously or appalled when you ask for respect and clash to collect that
but there’s an image and collective view and they wish to protect that
so they’ll hand out their checks and have you collect that
sign your name where the X at,
and any other issues, call first and eh…just check back
…
savages?
I guess that made it easy to clear a conscience and assert the tragedies of old and walk in the ignorant consciousness of now
but we too had social systems that influenced history and the modern world
bringing Europe out of the dark ages and America into global prominence
we were
pharaohs
innovators
engineers
scientists
sociologists, philosophers, shamans, bishops
doctors
traders, travelers, explorers
humanitarians, egalitarians, warriors, farmers
as well as slaveholders, slave traders, but not enslavers
we are the beat of culture and trend, to the very globalization of our black culture being a priceless commodity resold to us with interest, to which our only endorsement check is in the form of entertainment
while our rights are still owned yet we shout, free at last
not as a belief, but a spoken conjuring of a day we still hope to see and feel in its highest and truest essence
people who govern how I live, don’t look enough like people who come from where and how I lived, so and still, where is our interest represented
we were cowboys, the first
black wall street millionaires, then bombed
yet what is seen when you call something black…
what do your sciences and dictionaries define black as
and yet this is what my history is named after?
we were equatorial people, yet are celebrated in the winter, when most are behind closed doors keeping warm
but a holiday is for all people to celebrate and yet again, we are isolated and alienated for a full month, not knowing how to confront our own month
you show horror, but we are much more than that
this month feels more like obligated mourning than celebration, with no name more famous than the one that made white people most comfortable
…
an African proverb says, the axe forgets, but the tree remembers
captors and their axe, have no depth perception of what they do to the roots of the tree they have uprooted, they only live in the moment of their immediate need,
well I tell you, as my people excel they still ail from the axes that severed their roots, their very identity
generational trauma is a concept sounding too much like an excuse to the axe man, he simply just waits for another tree to grow back, throw seeds to create more trees, and while he waits, he goes to chop others down
while praising the contributions of the trees vaguely that it keeps chopping at by idolizing all the tree does for him, but not naming the tree or its region, only the many ways the tree benefits him, like money, paper, oxygen…until there is no more…but then, where will the axeman head next?
I’ve connected and communed with my captors, even those that realize and don’t, that they still have that mindset that views me as less or dependent.
if that isn’t trauma resilience and strength, then you tell me, if the tree could speak, would it ever be comfortable any time an axe was present or lying amongst it
could it see the axe for being just a tool, not one specifically meant to destroy it, although it can at any moment, yet still embrace it with love, tolerance, and humanity…
or would its roots shake and its branches molt its leaves at the mere mentioning of the axe?
..
black history is more about self-reflection, for those that made it
and those that created a reason for it to be celebrated
and still, like most American History,
it’s unjustly onesided
but we as a people, a nation do not have to continue being…one-sided
we’re a jigsaw, and it only makes sense when we come together
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