PAD Challenge Day 17: Unapologetically Black


PAD Challenge Day 17: Write a reason poem

Unapologetically Black

Please, ask me why,
one more reason why,
“Why are you proud to be
Black and Proud?”
Do you not remember?
Or is that, you don’t
care to remember why?
The history.
The shame.
The disgrace.
Put upon this race.
Because I can sweep off
the rug and recall history-
the greatest American
history of all times,
that can run-and-tell
it all…to all like
a Final Call.
I know,
you know
what I know.
Those years,
ahead of our time,
that I can consciously
and emotionally define
while you subconsciously
just think today’s,
today is just fine.

Nah…
My DNA is still
conflicted and restricted.
The anguish and pain of
my ancestors still hurt our genes.
The separation and stripped down
from the Motherland’s
sweetest soil, honey, and milk
got us all deprived……
it has bruised my generational kin
and skin, bruised it blacker than
the berries that it taste sweeter than.

Nah…
This black skin used to
get hosed and spit on at sit-ins
It used to get slaughtered,
stretched, hanged, and sold like cattle.
It used to decorate
Southern Mahogany trees
with strange fruit
It used to abstract
Weeping Willows
with bloody teardrops
Fight Jim Crow in streets,
on school grounds,
at corporations and shoppes.
And it still gets hated on
by Klansmen behind and
in front of those sheets.

Nah...
Our skin tones are
still marching civically
bone to bone,
skin to skin,
trying not to lose character
or its identity to the hands
that constantly crashed
the Black Panther Party,
poisoned the black minds
and black bodies-
Tried to terminate
the black revolution
And spoil the black
love for the love
of the people.

Nah…
The Black Lives that Matter
will say it loud,
“I’m black and I’m proud.”
These are unlimited servings
to this black empowerment.
No other crowd can rock
Black Boy Joy and
Black Girl Magic loud.
This is liberation in memory
of the black dynasties.
This is free strength
from abandonment.
This is not a black
scientific experiment.
This is black exhibiting love
for the love of being black.
By no mistake.
By no mishap.
This is no accident
This is not black
faces for an act.
This is just me being
unapologetically 
proud to be black.


D'ElegantOne

Previous Mural at Duke University, Durham, NC
Circa 2018 :-)

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