(I wanted this to parallel "I Am Free." This was for a poetry slam contest at my school for the Black Student Union club about your culture, identity, or ethnicity. I won 2nd place.)
I am me.
A young black girl trying to endure society.
Trying to figure out what my life can be.
I barely even know my racial history .
Are my ancestors from Ghana or Mali?
Massa split and sold my family. Families.
So I have to begin with what I know of this age,
of bullets that find their place
in the bodies that constitute the strange fruits of today.
But it's probably fate
that those who serve and protect
can't seem to keep their trigger fingers erect.
I don't know that there is any hope of immunity
I do know that so many unleash malice on my community.
So many want to claim black culture but wouldn't dare to accept our race
in order to save face
My anger, pride, confusion, and grace
Runs at the same pace
Because after all, they're trying to copy my face
Without copping a taste
of the prejudice and hate
experienced everyday
I believe color is feared - but does this justify all the persecution
that trifles with the black lives matter locution
That instills pride and honor in our race?
Based on my comprehension
I'm not freedom of Ascension
Due to history's dimensions
My mind is never at ease.
In the news will there always be this Martin and that Bland and these Garners and those?
I suppose.
Minorities in a rich (white) America that can barely afford clothes
Probably can't even comprehend this prose
They can't focus in school because they're distracted by their woes
And can't aspire to be anything but pimps and ...
Maybe not that extreme but nonetheless striving to be basketball pros
Instead of donning senate and congressional robes
Wait,
are my brothers and sisters caught in a cyclical state
confined to food stamped plates
trying to run at a white man's pace
in this stuck-in-the-middle place
with no hope of escape?
I hope that we will be able to leave
Or will we be forced to flee?
Surely, they don't still have us swinging from trees
Or are there still flavored ashes lacing our nation's fall leaves?
I don't have the luxury of being naive
Believing that everyone is equal and free
I shouldn't have to chase white standards to succeed,
to be who I want to be
The me that is free from ever present captivity
If I ascended to the top
will some Anglo Saxon Nordic be there to chop
at my dreams?
Dreams where I am sitting pretty
Enough to scrub life un-filthy
Ethnic neighborhoods overrun with poverty, ignorance
crime, homelessness, intemperance
But it's okay because I am me
the me that will liberate thee
I too have a place in this jungled gym
Yeah me a young black gem
Living life down to the the roots and stems
I am me who plans to survive despite societal phlegm
I'm speaking directly to the human beings that precipitate hate over the nation
I am me who will love you regardless of your pigmentation
Maybe I am naive
But I am vowing to forever be free even if there's no immediate equality
Free from shackles, nooses, dogs, hoses, bullets, hatred
From Discrimination of different faces
The faces that created this gorgeously grotesque American nation.
