TABLE OF CONTENTS
Lessons in Acting ........................................................................................................................................................................... 5 Sun God(dess)..................................................................................................................................................... 7 Codes-witch ........................................................................................................................................................................... 8 The Monkey and the Crocodile ........................................................................................................................................................................... 9 Self-talk ......................................................................................................................................................................... 10 Bad News ......................................................................................................................................................... 12 Where you from in Africa?................................................................................................................................ 16 We wore the mask............................................................................................................................................ 17 Truth is, sacrilege ............................................................................................................................................. 19 Heuristics.......................................................................................................................................................... 23 My words are runaways.................................................................................................................................... 25 Cleopatra ......................................................................................................................................................................... 26 Body over Mind ......................................................................................................................................................................... 27 One big plantation............................................................................................................................................ 28
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John Henryism.................................................................................................................................................. 30 SONGS IN THE GARDEN OF BILAGANNA............................................................................................................. 40 He is Broken ......................................................................................................................................................................... 43 It’s worse than you think................................................................................................................................... 47 For my people: Tribute to Margaret Walker....................................................................................................... 49 Artist Statement................................................................................................................................................ 51
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To: My First Love
You are impossible to love Why? Because you are me I’m too ashamed to love myself You hurt me because I hurt me You deceived because they tricked you Someone broke your spirit It is impossible to love you Yet I find myself trying the impossible everyday I doubt I’ve loved anyone longer I doubt I’ve hated anyone harder
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Lessons in Acting Mama told me “Don’t you show out When we go to this store” age brings wisdom unless you 10 and ain’t learned nothin’ those first 9 years “Ain’t you learned nothin’?” She "scolds and I hang my head “You ain’t hear nothin’ I told you So let me say it to you again: Don’t embarrass me front of white folks Don’t act like you gots no home training Act like you got some sense Act like it’s sunny when it’s raining Don’t act like I ain’t raised you Don’t act like you never been taught Act the way you supposed to Not the way you’ve been caught.
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Blacktrick Knew a kid in my hood His name was Patrick That nigga was so black We called him Blacktrick He resisted his branding Bucked like a horse in a stable Eventually came to accept His nigger designer label We used to ball in my hood Niggas came from far and wide Blacktrick would get nervous In the sun he couldn’t hide When he stepped on the court It was like he came in cuffs This nigga couldn’t shoot But he knew how to bluff One day we was hoopin’ outside was hot as piss Blacktrick took off his shirt Niggas went “Oh shit!” Blacktrick’s nipples were black darkest we’d ever seen “Double chocolate chips ahoy” Would be the text on the meme Jokes came left and right Jabs to the head and the chest When we finished with that nigga He grabbed his shirt and left
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Sun God(dess) In the middle I feared your wrath Beaming down on me merciless, I hid from you promised to slap the black off me instead white light burned me crisp black and ugly as ever
In the beginning I floated in the dark Lit up by your warm core Pulsating Orange-red grapefruit horizon I came out with a sour taste Eviction hollering and shivering squinting to see you I thought I’d go blind In the end I cannot find you I am relieved Lightening in the dark the whole day you sailed your boat floating across the sky going through the motions You live, die, then relive endlessly
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Codes-witch I had a play aunt named Neesie When I was in middle school She was generous and she was cruel “Neesie! Telephone!” I yell from the other room “Who is it!” she booms She hates not knowing “Hello, this is Janelle speaking.” She says in a sophisticated tone Asks me politely to get off the phone Few seconds later I hear cackling “Chile’ thought you was Anne from work!” I sigh gently, feeling instant relief Grabbed the broom and continued to sweep Seconds later I hear her call out “STEPHEN! Get in here little boy!” On impulse I move swift like a mouse “You better not be running in my house! I slow my pace to a speed walk “What took you so long?” She says when I finally get to the door “I was in the kitchen sweepin’ the floor” “Hold on Chile’” she purred at the phone “Why you ain’t ask who it was? “I... I don’t know” eye contact, a chore “Look at me little boy!” she says in a roar “I wasn’t thinking” I proffer, voice cracked “Grab me a wine cooler out the frigerator” “Okay Chile’, I’m back”
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The Monkey and the Crocodile I once had a friend named Sean He was lanky with pasty skin A boy from a different tribe Mingled only with kin My tribe swung from trees His tribe controlled the waters Born worlds apart My world older and much hotter You see, I am a monkey He is a crocodile I grin out of fear He winks when he smiles I cry out of loss He weeps to deceive We were friends once Like the serpent and Eve One day he called me Said to me over the phone “Let’s celebrate life together May I visit your home?” Before I said yes I spoke with my tribe “Of course he can come!” Their eyes wide with surprise He came the next day We welcomed him arms open Sat together at the dinner table He smiled crooked, and broken “May I see your heart?” he asked. I hesitated then gave him a peek He grabbed it out my chest With his large, sharp teeth I cried and he did too For what we only saw in the end Monkeys and Crocodiles Can never be friends 9
Self-talk O
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Why you talk like that? you ain’t white, boy Thinkin’ you better than errbody just cause of them letters next to ya name, book smart no common sense head done got too big Feet too how old is you now boy? twelve? growed up fast didn’t you Just don’t forget where you come from Inner Remember Susie? the way she out counted you ran them numbers on you left you stammering not so clever now, huh nigga?
O
U
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Why you listenin’ to that music you ain’t white Thinkin’ you better than errbody just cause you got them letters next to ya name chest puffed up blowfish hot air, breath halitosis I done told you
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don’t forget where you come from Inner Remember Brian? the way he outmaneuvered you stole Cleopatra from you left you staggering not so clever now, huh nigga?
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Bad News I’m lying prostrate Body twitching Throat tight I can’t breathe Gasping for neshama The air is void of life inhaling emptiness exhaling death Eyes dazed I can’t see Grief like angel dust High on visions of death Give me something to live for Something to die for I crawl to the bathroom My wrists are itching
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Romance with a blade I seek comfort I have no helper No love tried and true The pain is trapped inside like poison flowing flowing through my veins I have to release it You help me to release it Euphoria in your touch Cold against my skin a pinch and then‌ I’m well again
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I woke up black hours of self-lecturing looked up to the sky for Him to explain the only response: wind and rain truth that brings tears to the eyes makes the heart tremble inside everything is a game of seek and hide everything about me is a lie you see the evolution of man ‘til the stars fall out of the sky and God puts them back up again
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Bi-lo Swing Low Bag boy go fetch carts Take Mr. Charlie’s groceries out Clean up on aisle seven Ms. Anne spilled the milk again Now come out of the asphalt fields Get behind this register Count that money right boy Bills larger than 50 go in the drawer Stand up straight Ring up those chitlins’ and beer You got your own bag boy now Tell him to fetch you some carts You’ve worked hard Don’t come in for a couple weeks Welcome back Now step into my backroom Somethin’ you wanna tell us? Somethin’ you took that ain’t yours? A bottled juice huh? Anything else? Your register is short We got you on tape boy Go ahead and confess Can you see it? Sorry, its against our policy Call your mama boy she can swing by Carry you home
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Where you from in Africa?
I’m from where the women’s heads are shaved and dreaded Eyes open. Eyes closed Where old-fashioned sewing machines sit on wooden desks and dusty floors Heads down. Legs crossed. Knees touching. Where criminals know where you keep your gun Men walking, heads turning I’m from where days are numbered across a sunsetting sky Young silhouettes running along the beaches Where gazelles act shy before the camera Tall grass unable to hide their shame Where kings play acoustic guitars Eastern name. Western bling. I’m from where white photographers take pictures of happy black boys A group standing afar waiting for their close-up
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We wore the mask we wear the mask? no. we wore the mask it grinned and lied to hide the one thing that kept us alive and slaves our fear blacks in white face blacks a confused race but no more, no more masks off, gloves too rather die standing then live on bent knees bet you never thought the day would come so soon
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Pyramid Schemes
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Truth is, sacrilege
Bombs over bags of dad’s guilt blow up the past let the debris scatter across The atmosphere is being sodomized Giant Dick named John Smith Mother Earth is a loose porous whore pornos reenact her deflowering Plucked from cherry tree Garden guarded the flaming sword Same one that circumcised the Holy One Used to cut off the head of goliath I saw it being auctioned on EBay There were 6 days and 6 hours left It’s Friday morning but no man knows the hour when Doom Ain’t play on Xbox nomore Nor called a MF Then reblogged on Tumblr nothing is sacred anymore when I keep playing God like He ain’t behind the sun sending down riddles to solve conundrums of the heart frozen air in the lungs liquor in the liver soul on black ice inspiration! white light condemnation? Man ain’t sacred nomore.
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Mobile Limits Flip phone bling 5 megapixels Text & talk plan A quarter of my paycheck Nigga you must be selling drug myself out of bed one morning leaned over to check my phone Sprint cut a nigga service I talk too much and send too many messages to too many black folks he must be dealing the deck stacked against me when I go to the DMV and the registration a third of my paycheck Why the hell is everything in Cali so goddamn expensive? no wonder niggas are a dime a dozen on a coast where slaves didn’t Play the Dozen free state meant we could roam until we were cut off and deported like Garvey my car been in the shop every four months since I started driving back in 05’ Liberty Mutual like the Freedman’s Bureau, hooked me up with a rental I could never afford on slave wages and everybody knows so when I pull up in the 2013 Chevy Impala heads turn and my liberal friends plead please don’t tell me you pushin’ weight a minute longer would push me over my limit and I can’t afford to be.
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Afri-can American
Afri-can I be American? Does my dark skin & indigenous features deny me the status of a citizen? Does my contrary style, my streetish demeanor disallow me from being an Ameri-can I be both at the same time? Can I go around with my right fist in the air then put it to my chest so that allegiance to this flag I swear? As I straddle this fence of identity The war rages on within me It’s an existential battle for my mind The fact that I haven’t lost my sanity Must mean there’s something divine about being an African in America Since colonialism the African in me Has tried to take back what was once his But in doing so they call him a racist I am Ameri-can’t We just co-exist? Not if the oppressor won’t give up Superiority for equality Not if America won’t accept the African part of me If I have to let him die Just to get a piece of the American pie Then no thanks I’ll stay African Amer-i-can’t ever be.
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Colonialisme She came in with the book of lies Fighting to reclaim my humanity Reciting it from heart but not from the heart I was captivated Convinced that she meant well She made my heart a colony “Kill the colonist!” Exported its love back to hers “Expel the foreigner!” Misery and despair gave birth The child’s name was revolution She made my heart a violent place
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Heuristics
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My words are runaways my words are slaves on the plantation of thought runaways screaming, “I don’t care if I get caught!” they hate the narrow lines that confine they hate the grammar system that binds they hate the white paper that mocks they hate the white reader that gawks my words escaped the plantation seething my words escaped the plantation unsheathing hatred courses through their curves and bends for having to pay for the slave master’s sins
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Cleopatra broke the picture glass framing us cut my fingers on the shards I bled for you atonement for your sins and mine my Queen run off with my enemy my inner me brown germ grafted pale flesh the color of death did us part I missed your funeral busy attending a rebirth christening the hiss of the serpent echoes through your tomb when I visit sounds like your voice in my dreams I hear death speaking every night same scene your front yard his back turned my hidden blade your windpipe a brief struggle through the bloody wound I emerge cleansed again and again then I see your picture golden rays of the forgotten Atum crowning the fallen queen you are not goddess
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Body over Mind I am a house nigga reincarnated Master’s mind Field slave’s soul tearing itself out of me trade my rage for peace God If I split in two will I have a single stream of consciousness? wide and endless unobstructed? the struggle is in the open Black germ warfare against the lesser me coexistence no option If I kill the other me have I committed suicide? I pull out a blade to cut myself see if I bleed color of molasses but it’s clear like the ancestors’ tears whispering Let’s swim back to safer shores we forgot how I have a field slave’s soul swimming inside of me shark agitated by the smell of blood cue the Jaws theme music empty the beaches Happy white people the slaves have come back
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One big plantation Mama working can’t see to can’t see because she can’t see me or my brothers when the boss want her at the office all the time she peeks in the room & catches a glimpse of us in our jammies mammies are longsuffering and nurturing all the time at least that’s what Lynn, mama’s boss, thought until she finally went angry black woman on her after she called her a black bitch ten long years of humiliation Corporate sharecropping Nonprofit cotton picking Public and private sector slavery Pops was sold to the idea that a stud made the babies but didn’t have to take care of em’ because the slave master would Food stamps and Medicaid and state funded daycare camps for the children while parents work under the same sun at different plantations He was a field Negro so he wanted to see the big house burn to the ground but after he ran away he never went to look for the son he lost or the woman he left Corporate sharecropping Nonprofit cotton picking Public and private sector slavery I left the university with $40,000 chains around my wrists and ankles but around my head was a crown of thorny knowledge that pricked my brain and mocked me as I filled out application after application looking for a slave master to feed me and control all my time telling me when and I can go where I can go for how long I can go I found a benevolent master that gave me benefits
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and paid vacation and a salary that kept me coming back each week because I was just one paycheck from being chattel and then when I was no longer of use and had become a fist in the nonprofit industrial machine I was cajoled to look for work in another field
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John Henryism He heard that Abraham left and left his wife and son in the desert searching for an oasis in the desert He read that Jesus wept and wept— over the plight of Jerusalem? No over the plight of his new born son He dreamt that Muhammad slept and slept hoping that his heart would be cleansed with snow and water and ice He awoke and the day had arrived “Show me the machine, I can beat it.”
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White Man’s Tour
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SONGS IN THE GARDEN OF BILAGANNA1 I
Truly, in the West The white man And the great peach tree Are tied with the black starlight Listen! fire approaches! The voice of the bluebird is dead. Truly in the West The white man And the great squash Are tied with the whirlwind, Listen! fire approaches! The voice of the bluebird is dead
II
From the top of the great peach trees the fire blazes, I see it; Around the roots the water boils, I smell it; Around the roots of the plants it boils, I smell it; From their tops the water boils, I smell it.
III
The peach burns up. The waters of the dark clouds drop, drop. The fire ascends. The waters from the tree leaves zap, zap. The fire descends. The waters from the plants zap, zap. The peach burns up. The waters of the dark mists drop, drop. 1
Bilaganna is Navajo for “the White Man”. In the context of this repurposed traditional harvest song, it refers to Colonel Christopher “Kit” Carson who led a campaign to round up and civilize the Navajos.
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IV
Shall I mourn the fruit of the great peach tree? Shall you take it? Shall I taste it? Shall I take it? Shall you taste it? Shall I? Shall you? Shall I find the fruit of the great squash vine? Shall you burn it up? Shall I cover it up? Shall I burn it up? Shall you pick it up? Shall I? Shall you?
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She is Broken As her son prepared to walk across the stage she walked through a maze of rules, regulations and stipulations to become a human being underneath the law, the ICE agent pushing her face into the ground, gravel, mud, and spit facial he broke her ribs in two places because she resisted being broken in the place where courage lives “Oscar Santiago,” the audience applauded as her son walked across the stage and she walked through a maze of barbed wired fences with armed security at every turn, an old woman is lying on the cement floor clutching her chest in pain, she stops breathing, it’s forbidden like using the broken toilet after 9pm in the camps of wailing and gnashing teeth, Oscar’s teeth glistened in the lights as his friends snap shots, gun shots went off in the auditorium, paramedics running across the stage as she awoke sweating through her gray sweatshirt she felt something was wrong, in her broken bones wrapped in gauze, she prayed to God as she called his girlfriend and she answered sobbing, Está muerto, mamá. Ellos lo mataron a tiros.
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He is Broken Twelve years in an iron cage, sweating each time he left his cell since Big Red shattered his collar bone in the yard, broken sewage pipes leaks shit In the yard at home where his babymama lives, he steps in it, this is what free soil feels like underfoot he is looking for a job to feed and clothe his two year old 850 Bryant tells him get food stamps so he won’t steal “Go to 1500 Mission.” 1500 Mission tells him they don’t offer that “Go to 785 Market” 785 Market tells him he needs a driver license “Go to 102 Fort Mason” 102 Fort Mason tells him they don’t offer that “Go to 1850 Mission” 1850 Mission tells him their program is full “Go to 1245 Howard” 1245 Howard tells him they offer GED but not job training “Go to 1500 Mission” two weeks later he’s thrown back in the cage for violating his parole, robbed a store to get medicine for his cold and diapers for his son who won’t stay out of the yard
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We are broken For thirteen years We planted them and uprooted them planted them and uprooted them planted them and uprooted them made them make friends then break them constantly rebuilding like a beaver’s dam holding back the flood of alienation and bullying a roach runs across the cafeteria floor Devon is on a poor child’s diet for the free and reduced lunch kids whose parents can’t afford to pay attention to them falling through the cracks patched with mud and baked good sales to pay for textbooks Mrs. Banks would rather retire to the burbs than turnaround an underachieving student’s life a long awaited family restart school closures can’t lead to transformation so Claudia drops out rather than be moved to another school to be told by another teacher girls like her don’t go to schools like UC Berkeley or Stanford or UCSF or UCLA In five years she’ll lie on her son’s school application, use her grandmother’s address so she can plant him hoping she won’t have to uproot him and plant him and uproot him…
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The Capacchione Lottery
What is an ethnic sort? Is it Mongoloid, Caucasoid, Negroid rankin’? Can you deal them on plush green tables start bankin’? I think not, I think not. What is a nonblack slot? Is it hard to slip your fingers between, tight like a noose’s knot? Can you slide in nickels and dimes hit the jackpot reverse time? I thought not, I thought not.
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With All Deliberate Speed
These things take time Unfold slowly like a Lotus Flower Stuck in white mud to bud Dorothy Count-Scoggins Charlotte’s black bloom looming, the conscious minds are unconscionable react with quick hands slow feet attack with mean glares smile with white teeth “Which way do we go now?” Onward, dear Dorothy We cannot click our heels return to where we’ve come We are behind you, far, far behind do not look back we will catch up in due time.
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It’s worse than you think
1. All of us appear to be resting but we are atrophying 2. Beginning with birth we gradually die Belching and breaking skin and breaking bones and boredom and Bayer for back pains 3. Catatonia and cats; cats everywhere; cats and catatonia and corn in a cup Corporate closed captioning for those who choose to view the cue Cantonese and Chinese and Creole and Croatian and Czech and Coptic 4. Dumb and dumber; dumb and dumberer as we waste away on dingy couches Depressed and diabetic and deaf and delusionally disordered and dementia Damn. Dipping Dunkin’ Donuts in frappachinos from Starbucks in dimly lit strip clubs Dusk until Dawn we drain our blood till we are dust bitten and dead as a dog 5. Earthen coffins that earthworms can eat through and evil angels peek through Evolution Edicts proclaiming the equality of Eve’s children from now till eternity EqualitEE = Everyone Erodes Eventually Evanescence tries to wake you up inside but is, likewise, ephemeral Ecclesiastical musings eat away at you: Eye never satisfied with seeing, ear never filled with hearing Everything’s the same, everyone’s the same, everywhere’s the mother Ergonomics: the science of evolving us to become more efficient slaves
fuckin’
same
6. Fire this time, off the couch with feverish pitch and dancing and fun and folly Futurama on pause; forgot to set future recording for Family Guy and Fringe and Modern Family and the New Normal and Fashion Hunters and X-Factor Fairly Odd how we forgot and forsook the ways of our fore parents Forbearance and fighting; fact and folklore, the Final Four hours of this
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Final Fantasy and the Fire Dragon hearkens back to the Omen and Son of Sam and the War to End All Wars and Fidel Castro’s rise to free his people and America fucking with Mexico and the Dominican Republic, and the First Legionnaires Disease outbreak and the Face on Mars Forever 21 just had a sale on funnel neck fleeces for men and women and fat girls First class ain’t like second class and second class ain’t like no class, First of the month means it’s time to smoke a blunt and get a dub for forty bucks,
for some for others
Facelift to forget those forty years you wandered in the deserted forest Faithless and feckless and freckled faced with African features 7. Gideon’s fleece is gritty from the sins of the children of a lesser god Gift of gab can’t save you from the gun in God’s generous hand Gainsayers gamble their goose away to the devil whose seven chefs cook it with garlic and ginger Gorgon and Gusion and Gaap and Gader’el and Gamigin and Gello and Gomory Gargoyles that look like demons; demons that look like gremlins; gremlins that look like goblins Gematria has already revealed the identity of the Anti-Christ and his English name is George and those with Gnosis smelled the sulfur when he greeted the children’s general assembly Greedy gnomes grabbed too many cookies out of the cookie jar and Mama Earth Got angry and sent hurricanes and floods and earthquakes to make Greenspan confess his sins Google knew the whole time with its googly eyes gawking at the stock market as we entered the Great Recession Gatsby the Great has returned and atoned for the sins of Gordon and Cheney and Goss and Gonzalez and Rumsfeld Gaddafi got got by well-groomed grinning goops that gobbled up his goods Guerillas all over the world, past and present, grieved for the Godfather of revolution, meanwhile Gents here go gaga for Gaga and still believe the sun revolves around God’s green earth and that Gandhi was a Cherokee from Georgia who migrated to Germany and singlehandedly took down Hitler Gehanna is filled with the ghosts of Leopold’s limbless children and Gore’s goose that laid the golden green eggs Gog and Magog are in a Cold War and Gollum is al-Masih ad-Dajjal and man is golem and man is Gollum Gil Scott-Heron walked alongside the devil and got him to spill his guts and Guilt ridden, he ran the gamut: Gerrymandering and genocide and the Jerry Springer show but Genghis Khan did it on his own and God created the grave that your atrophied body will one day
go
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For my people: Tribute to Margaret Walker For my people believing in a mystery God, still bowing down to images of white Jesus, in church, shouting, screaming, whooping and hollering, foaming at the mouth, running up and down the aisles shaking and quaking, only to come out into a world with no power to change it; For my people, trying to be citizens in a strange land, shucking and jiving, buck dancing, foot shuffling and knee knocking, laughin’ when ain’t nothing funny, scratching where they don’t itch, bending and bowing, all in the presence of Mr. Charlie; For my uncle, cold and alone, trapped in this white man’s world: started out in middle school huffing, promoted to marijuana later graduated with a degree in crack cocaine, a victim of the prison industrial complex, in-and-out of the revolving doors of the jailhouse; For my people in the inner-cities, North Charlotte, Cottage Grove, Smith Homes, West Oakland, Hunter’s Point, and Inglewood, living in the valley of the shadow of death, wallowing in their ignorance, their bones whispering, “Our hope is lost”, decadence of every kind, smoking, drinking, yelling, fighting, shootin’ craps, shootin’ out, shootin’ up, and shootin’ each other; For my people, who have been mis-educated, taught that white folk are the goose that the laid the golden egg of civilization: Galileo, Freud, Pythagoras, Hobbs, Shakespeare, Lincoln, Aristotle, Plato, Einstein, and Newton – the so-called architects of modern civilization, Frederick Douglass, Louis Farrakhan, Imam Mohammed, Mansa Musa, Imhotep, George
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Washington Carver, Benjamin Banneker, W.E.B. DuBois, Paul Robeson, Martin Delaney, Marcus Garvey, mere footnotes in the book of world history; For my young brothas that are slaves to trends, walking around wearing a month’s wages on their feet, sagging and bragging, trapping and rapping, smoking kush in the back of the 98’ Caprice, Wayne blaring through the speakers, intelligent gangstas with God buried underneath; For my people, standing in unemployment lines with their hands out looking for handouts, hood rich, with flat screens, leather couches, laptops & PC’s, Xbox 360’s and satellite TV section 8, federal housing projects slots, evictions, gentrification, false promises and broken dreams; For my people, drunk with the wine of the world, imitating the ways of their oppressors, pimping, whoring, hustling, cheating, stealing, wheeling and dealing, lying, conniving thinking they’re thriving, trying to carve out a meager existence in a world hostile to them because of the skin they’re in;
Let a new earth rise. Let another world be born. Let a bloody peace be written in the sky. Let a second generation full of courage issue forth; let a people loving freedom come to growth. Let a beauty full of healing and a strength of final clenching be the pulsing in our spirits and our blood. Let the martial songs be written, let the dirges disappear. Let a race of men now rise and take control.
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Artist Statement
This collection of poems meets at the intersection of politics, identity formation, and race. My academic background is in psychological theory; I believe theories are a way to construct meaning out of experience. Using poetry as a medium, theory comes alive in ways it cannot through controlled experiments. The structure and layout of the chapbook is based on William Cross’ black identity formation theory called the Nigrescence model, “the process of becoming black.” There are five stages in the model2: •
Pre-encounter – period before formation process begins. Generally marked by self-hatred expressed through pro-white attitudes and negative self-perception. Individuals in this stage may also consider being black of little to no significance.
•
Encounter –experience that shatters one’s current identity; could be a single event or a series of smaller events. The reaction to the encounter(s) can include anger, confusion, anxiety, and depression.
•
Immersion-Emmersion – period of transition in which individual struggles to “destroy all vestiges” of the old self. It is common to glorify everything black and denigrate everything white during this phase as a way to purge oneself of the former worldview. Internalization of “blackness” is low.
•
Internalization – period in which the “resolution of conflicts between the old and the new” occurs. Development of a greater inner security around blackness and a more pluralistic perspective of oppression. Blacks are still held as a primary reference group.
2
William Cross, Shades of Black: Diversity in African America (Temple University Press, 1991)
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•
Internalization-Commitment – individual(s) commit to activities that express new identity; hot anger towards whites is converted into cold anger and channeled towards campaigns to transform oppressive and racist institutions. Each section in the book represents a journey through these different, discontinuous stages.
That journey is in an internal revolution, a coup à d'esprit; blow to the colonial state the mind. The inclusion of love poetry serves two primary functions: to highlight the role romantic relationships play in unearthing deep rooted self-antipathies and, second, to situate love and hate as fundamental in any revolution. In addition to being an identity formation case study, this chapbook is a reminder to the American body politic, which is prone to disremembering. America’s “Great Forgetting” is its cultural amnesia regarding the recent and historical treatment of so-called African Americans and other people of color. Leela Fernades calls this the “politics of forgetting” and defines it as the “political-discursive process in which specific marginalised social groups are rendered invisible within the dominant national political culture.”3 Writing is an art form used to remind the hearts of what ought not to be forgotten. It is a revolutionary act in circumstances when remembering constitutes defiance. The pen, then, is dangerous and necessary. When used revolutionarily it reverberate reconciling truths across the world. Early Muslim scholar, Ibn Abbas, describes this original purpose of writing: “From a gem, [the Creator] created a Pen…from it light flows as ink flows from the pens of the people of this world. The Pen was told, “Write!” And, as the Pen trembled because of the awesomeness of the proclamation, it began to reverberate in exaltation, as thunder reverberates.” May our pens echo unheard voices from the past, in the present, for the future. 3
Leela Fernandes, The Politics of Forgetting: Class Politics, State Power and the Restructuring of Urban Space in India (Dept. of Political Sciences, Rutgers University: 2004)
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