intersection of Black and...

in our own ways

we all break.

it is okay

to hold your heart outside of your body

for

days.

months.

years.

at a time.

- heal

 cry wild.

you have probably never cried wild.

but, you know what doors

feel like.

you have

an intimacy with doors

that is killing you.

- break

Poetry by Nayyirah Waheed from her book salt.

The first time I felt deeply uncomfortable being black was when I was a kid. My family had just moved to Alabama, and I was in a car with my father and my brother. A white woman with a harshly lined face and brown frizzy hair yelled out a racial slur as we drove by. Dad immediately put the car in reverse and drove over to her as she pumped gas at a filling station. "What did you say?" he demanded. She glared at him and refused to respond. Shocked into silence, my brother and I didn't say anything for the rest of the drive home. The second time was in a quaint town in Mexico. I am a journalist living in Mexico City and I had decided to take a trip to Veracruz, where hundreds of thousands of African slaves had been brought by Spanish colonialists five centuries prior. I wanted to visit Yanga, a place that called itself "the first free slave town in the Americas". The town was named for Gaspar Yanga, a slave who had led a successful rebellion against the Spanish in the 16th century.

I had only just learned about Afro-Mexicans, the isolated descendants of Mexico's original slaves, who reside on the country's rural Pacific and Gulf Coasts. After months of research and a visit to the remote Afro-Mexican community on the Pacific Coast, where most of them live, I felt compelled to visit the Afro-Mexicans in Veracruz on the Gulf Coast. I ended up spending most of my time trying to figure out Yanga. As I arrived in town, I peered out of my taxi window at the pastel-painted storefronts and the brown-skinned residents walking along the wide streets. "Where are the black Mexicans?" I wondered. A central sign proclaimed Yanga's role as the first Mexican town to be free from slavery, yet the descendants of these former slaves were nowhere to be found. I would later learn that most live in dilapidated settlements outside of town.

The next morning, I walked the few yards from my hotel to the town's library, my shirt sticking to my back in the heat. I had been told that the librarian was the best source of information about Yanga's history. While walking, I raised my hand to shield my eyes from the blinding sun, and also from the gaze of people in the roadside shops and central square. I had grown used to the attention in Mexico City, where blacks are a rarity, but this time it was different. The stares were cold and unfriendly, and especially unnerving in a town named for an African revolutionary. "Mira, una negra," I heard people whisper to one another. "Look, a black woman." "Negra! Negra!" taunted an old man with a shock of white hair under a tan sombrero. Surrounded by a group of men, he gazed at me with a big, toothy grin. He seemed to be waiting for me to come over and talk to him. Shocked, and suddenly transported to that one afternoon in Alabama, I shot him a dirty look and headed into the library's courtyard.

The notion of race in Mexico is frustratingly complex. This is a country where many are proud to claim African blood, yet discriminate against their darker countrymen. Black Mexicans complain that such bigotry makes it especially hard for them to find work. Still, I was surprised to feel like such an alien intruder in a town where I had hoped to feel something like familiarity. Afro-Mexicans are among the poorest in the nation. Many are shunted to remote shantytowns, well out of reach of basic public services, such as schools and hospitals. Activists for Afro-Mexicans face an uphill battle for government recognition and economic development. They have long petitioned to be counted in Mexico's national census, alongside the country's 56 other official ethnic groups, but to little avail. Unofficial records put their number at 1m. In response to activist pressure, Mexico's government released a study at the end of 2008 that confirmed that Afro-Mexicans suffer from institutional racism. Employers are less likely to employ blacks, and some schools prohibit access based on skin colour. But little has been done to change this. Afro-Mexicans lack a powerful spokesperson, so they continue to go unnoticed by the country's leadership. "What we want is recognition of our basic rights and respect of our dignity," Rodolfo Prudente Dominguez, a top Afro-Mexican activist, said to me. "There should be sanctions against security and immigration agents who detain us, because they deny our existence on our own land."

If you have not heard of Mexico's native blacks, you are not alone. The story that has been passed down through generations is that their ancestors arrived on a slave boat filled with Cubans and Haitians, which sank off Mexico's Pacific coast. The survivors hid away in fishing villages on the shore. The story is a myth: Spanish colonialists trafficked African slaves into ports on the opposite Gulf coast, and slaves were distributed further inland. The persistence of this story explains the reluctance of many black Mexicans to embrace the label "Afro", and why many Mexicans assume black nationals hail from the Caribbean. Colonial records show that around 200,000 African slaves were imported into Mexico in the 16th and 17th centuries to work in silver mines, sugar plantations and cattle ranches. But after Mexico won its independence from Spain, the needs of these black Mexicans were ignored. Some Afro-Mexican activists identify themselves as part of the African diaspora. Given their rejection from Mexican culture, this offers a more empowering cultural reference. But with no collective memory of slavery (it was officially abolished in Mexico in 1822), or of any time in Africa before then, Afro-Mexicans are considerably removed from their African roots.

"Bienvenida, welcome!" called out Andres, the librarian, as he guided me into a chair. Andres is not black, but he was the first person to make me feel comfortable in Yanga. He acted as if my presence was perfectly ordinary, probably because he is accustomed to African-American visitors who are curious about his research into slavery in Mexico. During my visit, he was in the middle of teaching an art class to young children. He told me about the slave trade and African culture festivals in Veracruz while gluing together paper-maché masks. The kids smiled shyly at me. "There's a lot of racism here against blacks, isn't there?" I asked him, still confused about the town's hostility. "No, not really, we're all poor, that's the problem," he answered, brushing back his brown curly hair and laughing. Before he finished his sentence, a black Mexican woman came up to us. She exchanged a few words with Andres, and then delicately took my hand in hers. "Bienvenida", she said, before leaving.

After leaving the library, I decided to explore. I stopped in an office to ask directions from a group of Mexican men, who flirted valiantly before wishing me well. I wandered aimlessly, nearly melting in the heat. I brooded over Mexico's contradictory feelings about race. In a place where everyone is considered "mixed race", owing to the country's long colonial history, skin colour is clearly a symbol of status. Many Mexicans are generous and kind to me, viewing my otherness as interesting and lovely. Yet black Mexicans are often mistreated and ostracised. I think about this unsettling tension when I occasionally pass a black Mexican in Mexico City, and she gives me a slight, genuine smile.

In early January, I went to Mexico to do research for an upcoming Afropop “Hip Deep” radio documentary exploring the African heritage in music in Mexico, Afropop’s first ever Mexico-focused project. I was joined by filmmaker Nina Macintosh, to make a series of short videos on the topic as well. Against all the advice of friends and family both in Mexico and the US, we rented a puttering old car and drove around the country, tracing Afro-Mexican music and history.

First, we came down the mountains from Mexico City, and visited the Costa Chica in Guerrero state, where criollo communities play traditional chilena and a high-energy, not-so-traditional form of cumbia. From there we curved down the coast and crossed the country at it’s narrowest point, visiting the towns in southern Veracruz where the Afro-Mexican influenced son jarocho is experiencing a serious youth revival. Then we drove up to Veracruz city, whose port facilitated the spread of Afro-Cuban music in Mexico. Last, we went back up the mountains to Mexico City, to visit the old-school dancehalls where super cool old people still boogey to the Afro-Cuban danzón.

Researching Afro-Mexican culture is very different than researching other African-descended musical traditions in Latin American because it’s still very much uncertain what Afro-Mexican even means. Here are the facts: according to colonial records, over 100,000 enslaved Africans were brought to Mexico in the 16th and 17th centuries. By 1793, census figures put Afro-Mexicans at 10 percent of Mexico’s population – 370,000 people. Some of the earliest Mexican military heroes had African heritage, including Vicente Guerrero, who served as president, and revolutionary leader José Morelos.

In the world beyond the facts, in the world of everyday life in Mexico, the world of people’s identities, the term “Afro-Mexican” is much less clear. In most cases, African ancestry has been blended completely with indigenous and European ancestry. For a long time, Mexican ideologues espoused the notion of a “raza cosmica” (“cosmic race”) based on the mixture indigenous and European blood, and that mestizo notion of self is a huge part of national identity in Mexico. Africa, the so-called “third root,” never really figured into the conversation.

In recent years, all of a sudden, a lot of people are talking about Afro-Mexico. There have been scholarly works and museum exhibits in both the US and Mexico, and political organizations have begun to spring up. There have been efforts to count self-identified Afro-Mexicans in order to push for the national recognition that could facilitate much-needed funding for cultural initiatives. There have been radio programs and documentaries. Many have seen these projects as a way to recapture a forgotten history, to give voice to a group that has been historically voiceless.

Others are more skeptical. Some have said that the concept of “Afro-Mexican” was invented by U.S. scholarship, an attempt to impose American racial ideas on Mexico. Or that that it was nurtured by Chicano activists interested finding a racial basis for political solidarity with African-Americans. People in Mexico, outside of well-heeled hippies and academics, are often uneasy talking about black heritage. There have been arguments about terminology – should it be afromestizo, afromexicano or plain afrodecendiente? One cultural activist I met in the Costa Chica insisted that his culture wasn’t “Afro-Mexican” – he preferred the idea of being criolla, or creole. And while son jarocho groups in the U.S. often tout their music’s Afro-Mexican origins, members influential jarocho groups from Veracruz like Los Cojolites will smile wryly when you ask about the African roots of their music and say, “that’s what they tell us.” It’s part of their understanding of the music, but just one part in a big, complicated cultural web.

So here’s the point: it’s complicated. It’s political. Identity always is. But through this project, we’ve had the opportunity to explore that complexity through one of the best tools we have: music. That’s been the mission of our Hip Deep programming since the beginning, to explore the murky soup of history and culture while keeping ourselves dancing at the same time.

There are quite a few social and political issues I have seen that really bother me. I find these to be issues mainly because of their context. These issues are often used to spin “minorities” or any opposing political party in a negative light. They are also used subjectively to push personal agendas rather than facts and actual topics. They mostly tie into one another, which is why I believe they all need to be addressed. Here are a few of those issues. 

 My first issue is the repetition of biased or false information in some political stances.  I find that right wing and conservative speakers often repeat false or biased information. For example, some use surveys with small selective groups to provide a biased result in order to prove a point and possibly spread misinformation.  This strategy takes advantage of an average person who most likely does not have any background information on the topic. They will learn this information from what they believe to be a factual source, when it is actually heavily biased and selectively pulls information to help prove conservatives’ point instead of what the information was meant to reflect. This biased manipulation of information causes many misconceptions and misguided views among people today.

Another issue I have is religion’s placement in political and supposedly professional environments. I find that religion is often used as a weapon or is relied on too heavily for guidance in areas it should not be, such as politics.  I’ve seen many moments of this during President Barack Obama’s time in office. He was often said to be “the devil” himself who was going to bring about “the apocalypse” or “the Rapture”. Now in this instance the right has used very loaded words for people who are religious which plays on offensive racist imagery. This causes an instant negative opinion based on hearsay and not actual merit. Another instance is using a person’s religion against them, such as incorrectly calling Obama a Muslim—as if being Muslim was a bad thing. It is stated in the Constitution that each American has the right of free religion, so it should not matter in the slightest. But far too often many politicians use it as a talking point of why not to vote for their opposition. When the conservative base believes in it, then problems are caused.

This brings me to my final talking point; the liberal use of constitutional amendments and their interpretation. Now, I do know that loose interpretation of the Constitution is a political practice as old as the Constitution itself. However, what I see in today’s media and political debates is outright negligence. I’ve seen moments of politicians denying or going against constitutional amendments with anti-religious or biased religious campaigns, violating the freedom of religion amendment.  I’ve also seen liberal usage of amendments to the Constitution, such as conservative opposition to gun control. They often state that guns should not be regulated because it goes against the Constitution, but the amendment states that individuals merely have the right to “bear arms”. It factors not into lowering the lethal caliber of weaponry available to the general public, but many still complain it goes against the Constitution. Whenever I see such selective use of the Constitution I am greatly saddened by how common a practice it has become.

Those are my three central arguments and issues with modern day politics. Most of which I see practiced and generated from right wing conservatives; but the left wing and liberals are guilty as well. Some ride on a constitutional point or statement too much, to the point of doing more harm than good. When I see moments like these, it makes me sad for where our politics are going, but it also gives me another feeling. It makes me irritated and motivated to try and fix it, and do something about the issues. That is one of the reasons why I am writing this essay. To help people acknowledge these issues so they will be able to help fight against them.

The Bellhops are a blues and hip hop theater ensemble of artist-scholars at UW-Madison. Their music is grounded in Black musical traditions that speaks truth to today's 'illusionary era' while simultaneously 'imagining an alternative future' to the often static state that is American urban life.

In Madison, Wisconsin, USA, women are generally not taken seriously in the music scene. This led Taylor Scott to start the group and to carve out space within Madison's music scene for women to collaborate, create, and be heard. All of The Bellhops' writers are Black Women who create music that reflects a social justice agenda; the themes of Womanhood, poverty, sex, and survival. 

The title of their latest EP, Hero of My Own Tale, comes from the reality that 'no one else can tell your story like you can' and is also a line from the song 'Be Alone,' which speaks about the need for independence. It talks about the importance of being comfortable on your own while also warning against being lost within one's independence, such as reaching the point of isolation from others, like their own community. Its lyrics are sung as a remember for us all that community, no matter how you define it, has the power to support, to heal, and to provide the opportunities for human connection which can lead to shared strength and solidarity...a sentiment that is still so needed today.

The Bellhops include the vocal talents of Dantrell Cotton, Natalie Cook, Taylor Scott, EJ Newble, Hiwot Adilow, and Myriha B.; Morgan Ryser on keyboard; Nathan France on sax; Lauren Koehler on flute; Andrew Schroeder and Max Perkins on the drums; and Quinn Jacobson and Spencer Hobbs on bass and guitar.

Note from BW of Brazil: The question in the title of today’s piece may seem ridiculous to some: How did you discover ser negra (being black)? But is this really such a simple question? There are so many perspectives to consider here. Are we speaking of only a a skin color? Are we speaking of an acknowledgement of one’s connection to the African continent? Are we speaking of a political identity? Whether we are speaking of persons who live in Brazil, the United States, Australia, the Philippines, Melanesia, Iraq or the African continent itself, we find people who consider themselves or have been classified as black. But do all of these peoples have the same understanding of what that means? When an 8-year child in any of these areas of the world wakes up and looks in a mirror and sees his or her brown or black skin, that child may know that he/she has a particular shade of brown skin, but does that child know what meanings have been associated with this skin color over the past few millennium, particularly over the past five centuries? Or is this something this child must eventually learn? When we consider such issues it becomes obvious that this question is not at all simple, especially in a country like Brazil that teaches young afrodescendentes to avoid blackness at a very early age. With such specifics in mind, these are a few of the reasons we present such explorations into black identity as the one we share below.

How did you discover ser negra (being black)? How did it happen? Out of nothing one sees the color that the skin has and boom, I’m black? Were you born black? So why do many (as) not assume themselves as blacks? Are they black only if the skin is darker? These are questions I asked myself before discovering myself as black. I say discovered because due to the society being racist and colorist, many today are unaware of their race, ethnicity, don’t really know their identity, and this happened to me.

The daughter of a mãe negra (black mother) (family on my mother’s side: black with Indians) and father that is so-called pardo (brown) (family on my father’s side: black with Portuguese and indigenous) I was born and declared by society: parda (brown), that is, neither white enough nor black enough, it was a middle term… the erasing of my racial identity began there … Middle term? Misturada (mixed)? Morena (brown/mixed)?

At 17, I met a person who was very important in my life and that has always been linked to social causes (before I was not as engaged as I am now), and always questioned me about how I saw myself, what I considered myself , always brought questions about racial issues, about hair (for I was a slave of the chapinha – straightening iron – etc …), and that was awakening in me this point of identity that I had into the open … and I thought: “Hey, what’s wrong with pardo?” I thought that this term contemplated me. In my view, I hadn’t erased any of the existing aspects in my family, because there were many blends, but I was wrong, because after being questioned a lot, and because of some saying that I am black and others not (even some blacks) it made me want to go back, and get to know about my identity.

As such, I started searching about the term pardo that comes from pardal (sparrow), a pejorative term used by white colonizers to erase the identity of blacks, so as to cause segregation among blacks who don’t recognize the other as black, as well as being an animalistic term, it hides our identity, dividing us further. I saw that pardos are considered negros by statistics and that this term should be abolished in view (of the fact that) that no one subdivides the group of whites, no one classifies a more pinkish white as rosinha (pinkish), they only call them white, so why have we had this second name?

And after much searching, and then finding black feminism, after searching in myself features as much physical as events that made me see my blackness (as when they followed me and my mother in the stores, as when a girl at the counter of the diner asked if I had money to buy a croissant, things that would not happen to whites, in relationships as when the preference is always for the popular white girl in the class), after seeing examples of black women who most looked like me in color and who self declared themselves black (see how important representation is), was when I saw myself as black at last!

After taking this awareness, I came to understand many things that I experienced, and I went on to take this awareness as truth and affirming that no one would take it from me anymore, I started to assume my hair and abolish the chapinha, and all that, I started wearing turbans, a symbol of struggle and resistance of our people, that helped me a lot in empowering me to secure my identity, to become strong and to recognize my beauty, I started to participate in coletivos negros (black collectives), I started to get more involved in activism, I came to fight for I believe in, I started to get more knowledge about our people, our roots, my roots, and finally, I chose the negra option and no more the parda option.

So it was a research process of deconstruction, acceptance, I had many people on my side contributing to my empowerment and affirmation, and I know that today, at age 20, for as much as society remains racist and colorist, I am empowered and as firm about my identity, and currently I do with other women what they did to me one day, empowerment, I transmit what I have learned one day to them so that they recognize themselves as negras and that they love themselves, adore themselves, so that they have pride in being negras because here among us, we’re great, a chosen race, kings and queens, and I try to transmit this to the other women and show that we’re together, that it’s us for us!

It was not easy to get to where I am, it was slow and painful, but knowing your identity is a political act! And transmitting your ideals, and helping other women, children, to be an example of representation, seeing more and more black women united and loving themselves is priceless, it’s what makes militancy worth it! I am angry, I denounce cultural appropriation, unmask racists, put my finger on the sore, try to deconstruct wishful thinking, I have blood in the eye for many things but I also love. Militancy based in hatred generates emotional, sentimental and physical disorder; militancy has to base itself in love (with your own) and wisdom to deal with others (strategy), but love is the key and I believe in this to continue helping others as I can and reaching people!

As light-skinned negras who still doubt that they are black, they know that our blackness has many colors, many shades, textures, shapes, and that being black is not only a skin color, it’s a set of factors that makes us who we are. And they should not let anyone question their identity! And you also need to know that suffering racism is not a meter of blackness; you are no less black suffering less racism because of your skin being lighter. You suffer less with racism, or enjoy a privilege compared to darker-skinned blacks, but that does not make you less black, black is black, period. Knowing your place of speaking within the movement is the law, and knowing that black women are not alone, although the world segregates us and marginalizes us, we have each other, and we continue fighting side by side!

Out of all the things my uncles told me about before heading off to college, I wish they mentioned all the racially charged encounters I would have. They sold me a college dream; my family, coaches, teachers and even the recruitment coordinators all told me college would be a great life experience—you know, enduring these next few years as a young adult without having most of the adult responsibilities… In certain situations it held to be true such as the parties, the intoxicated nights of stumbling up to my dorm room, the extremely fun but scarce on-campus events that were for and created by black students, as well as the life-long friendships and professional relationships I made.

Still, they never told me about the racial issues between blacks vs. whites, the internalized self-hatred so many Black folks have for themselves and the many other racially charged moments like ‘oh that black mothafucka think he too good because he is on the track team. He ain’t shit and I bet he won’t make it anywhere in track either,’ that had me questioning my own reasoning for trying to accomplish milestones—such as being the first black male in my family to graduate college or become a professional athlete. Before entering college, I truly wish I was told I'd be one of the few black dots on a large white piece of paper—I figured since I grew up in predominantly black environments, then college would be similar. I thought I would be among familiar faces, but those faces were not at all familiar.

In one of my business courses as a freshman, I had a professor say to the entire class that none of the black students would make it beyond the third week. She said we wouldn’t survive because of the poor education our poor black schools gave us and that we most likely were not taught how to do simple algebra. I felt this was a hard blow from someone who never stepped foot in an inner city high school to experience the learning environments for herself. A few Black students walked out of class with anger and disgust in their eyes. I had thought to follow but chose to stay and voice my opinion instead. I wanted to make it a point to prove her ass wrong.

At the end of the semester, I had failed the course as she predicted, but not because her theory was correct. I aced all of my homework assignments and passed the quizzes she gave to us. I had failed because there were many instances where I was not comfortable to endure the professor’s racist remarks, so I was forced to miss class. Unfortunately, attendance accounted for fifty percent of my grade and so I had failed her course because I couldn’t face her hostility. Nothing was done to address her racism, even after complaints to the Dean. In turn, there was no need to have a sense of urgency to make my way to her class. I showed up only to turn in assignments and to take quizzes. The way she might have seen this impressionable win was an 'I told you so.'

Being a Division 1 athlete should have put me and my teammates in a position that was at the top of the food chain as an untouchable- immunity to keep me hidden from all the bull I was facing, like the experiences I was having in my business class. But instead I was reminded daily that I was just another nigga to them- the white majority athletic department staff and to my white and black peers. To them I was a great athlete and a subpar student without any goals other than to make it big in sports. I am thankful my coaching staff was there to somewhat keep me grounded. I had professors who made it obvious that they wanted to see me fail and white peers from small white rich communities staring at me as if I was some foreign creature. Even other Black students had harsh statements to say about me, calling me a “high class nigga.”  I guess since I didn’t walk like them anymore, didn’t bring that street life mentality into college like some of them did or even to the point where I had college paid for via athletic scholarship, that made me a high-class nigga to them. I always felt that since we looked like each other, we must have come from somewhat similar backgrounds and have somewhat of a common goal - to get an education in order to uplift ourselves and our families from the situations we came from.

My track and field coach did her best to shelter us from various non-related track and field distractions such as Facebook- being in study hall pretending like we were making progress on school work but we were posting pictures and looking for the next upcoming party, uploading fights and not keeping our noses out of other peoples business, UMKC News (the school newspaper) which had a knack for getting juicy stories, YouTube, the drinking, the parties, and the performance enhancement drugs. Racism was never mentioned as something to be protected from. Racism never came into play since it wasn't talked about publicly as often as the parties and the drugs. And yet, I carried daily a mental blade to slice through the dense cloud of racially charged instances that I so often experienced—there was tension amongst us blacks as well as tension between many black and white students. Despite this daily struggle, I had to keep in mind that everyone who walked our campus wasn’t racist, even though it existed and there were a large number of people who clearly had racism in their hearts.

In 2011 we had our Summit League Conference Indoor Championship Track Meet in Fargo, ND. Before my race, I had the pre-race jitters and went to the bathroom to calm down in a stall. It was there that I overheard an older white man ranting about there being so many “niggers in town” for the track meet this year and how he believed his granddaughter’s university had no chance against the black kids. I had always wondered how I would react if I was ever in a situation like the one I was in at that moment; would I correct them or would I sit back and let them continue to indulge in their own ignorance?

Infuriated as I was, I chose the more civil approach: I walked away frustrated, exhaling hard breaths. That old fart and I made eye contact as I exited the stall. I wanted nothing more than to win that 60m dash so I used all of the anger I was feeling to fuel my fire as an attempt to win the race. Having all of that anger inside of my head while trying to prepare turned out to be a mistake; I failed to take first place and slid backwards when it came to mental preparation.

In 2012 I was quickly approaching another finish line, only this time I was preparing to graduate college. Memories about my racist business professor during freshman year still lingered my mind. I wanted nothing more than to slap that professor in the face with my diploma for all of the bigotry that fell from her tongue in that classroom. Over the last four years, I fought the good fight, stood tall with some of my sisters and brothers and faced adversity head on. I was brought to college to run track; to be a pawn on a collegiate level chessboard, making moves because I was told to do so. For three years, I did that but in 2012 I made my own moves by telling my coach I no longer wanted to be on scholarship. I no longer had the desire to be her puppet. Graduating in four years instead of five like athletic advisors advised me to do. All the little pieces constructed over the last four years were put in place for this very reason: being the first black male from the family to receive a college diploma, to make my family proud and to make these white people I had come across pissed off for doing the exact opposite of what they said I couldn’t do. I didn’t fold under pressure; I never backed down because so many others fought for the same things many years before.

Maddox Sullivan-- Poet, Track and Field Athlete. Pro-BLACK-tivist

Mines

My skin was never solely mines.

It was always

Up for observation

Art on display

Its essence ambiguous

To the external eyes authority.

My dark skin either royal,

Or encompassed with disgust

So then...

Tell me who I am

As my statue remains silent

With just my imagery

To speak my tale.

Black Lives

(Dedicated to all Black Lives because they matter.)

Black Lives

Have a burden

A blessing and a curse.

Where the right to one's own freedom and identity

Is contradicted

By oppressive hierarchical distinctions.

 Black lives have a burden

A blessing and a curse

Where a force beyond one’s internal

Dictates how one should exist within this immediate world.

Erase the concept of pure individual will

When within a brief encounter

Of authority versus the powerless

Your soul begins to rupture

Because it is no longer about YOU

But what they see and who they want you to be.

 Forget the Kings and Queens

Who descended from the

The motherland of humanity's womb.

Forget the social, religious, and spiritual

Structures that was organized

By ourselves

and not the colonizer!

 Black lives have a burden

A blessing and a curse.

Where us descendants of melanin longevity

Can soak underneath the sun’s protection

There is a higher innate protection connecting and transcending us

Despite this the world being against us.

 Black lives have a burden

a blessing and a curse.

Because we continue to organize ourselves against us "others"

Whom are truly us alike.

While those who designed our hatred’s confusion

Benefit from the disasters that are wars against us.

 Black lives have a burden a blessing and a curse

And if we do not heal ourselves through these traumas

They will continue to kill us.

The Black Man

My aunt said,

"The black man

Is

Becoming

An endangered

Species. "

System I used to be blind

But now my vision will no longer deceive me

The system was created to Misguide and deceive. The laws they created tells us we are equal holds truth to only false extents Because through history and the present moment Those of color were meant to be as extinct.