Dear Yvette,
You ask me why I care as much as I do
Emotional am I to make our suffering people whole?
Could it be that I carry our ancestors’ broken hearts
Look around . . . my god, has pain taken its toll
Turn away could I, to close thy misty eyes
Though even in darkness I can hear their voice,
The whips, the lashes, the sun-seared spines
Babygirl, please understand, I have no choice
The scars, engrained, do they live deeply in me
The inheritor of a strange duality am I,
My liberties for which they died is their legacy
The very ones our beloved homeland would deny
Bondage and Jim Crow by law, the cold won’t thaw
Tell me, don’t you feel it in the societal air?
Heavy is sin’s stench but I refuse to flinch
Relegated to a bottom caste, damn, it’s so unfair
Listen to what I’ve learned about our sacred vote
It’s not only our voice but it’s money too,
The Clintons are now worth a quarter of a billion
The Obamas are now over a hundred million—it’s true
Marianne Williamson says her people were repaired:
“Germany’s given $89 billion to Jews since WW2,”
Reagan restored the Japanese for the internment camps
Indian tribes given billion-dollar casinos as profits accrue
The forgotten founders: American Descendants of Slavery
“Ain’t I a citizen . . . I too pay tax”; this benign neglect,
Terror remains . . . bullets, bombs, dogs and water hoses
And mass incarcerated are we to devastating effect
Backs against the justice wall, our shoulders pinned
The awakened giant—wide awake!—has lost all fear,
No longer accepting a hand so callously dealt
The data don’t lie—the facts are abundantly clear
We’re due, by God, his people are long overdue
The righteous won’t be forsaken, our time is nigh,
Ancestral spirits cloak us with the skill and will
ADOS, clasp hands and minds, together we’ll fly
Economic justice, no less, our families restored
From the bottom up, our democracy we now reclaim,
Giving honor to the gift that is our hallowed forebears
Make them proud we will, the world will know our name:
ADOS: American Descendants of Slavery . . . let’s do this!
-Roy Greer II
_______
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“We comin’!” -Antonio Moore, ToneTalks Media; Co-founder, ADOS Movement
“Lineage matters.” -Yvette Carnell, Founder, BreakingBrown Media; Co-founder, ADOS Movement
Pamper the people . . . and make them whole. -Rg2
© 2019 Pamper-Her-Friday by Rg2®
Pamper-Her-Friday by Rg2® 